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Friday, April 19, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Biden taps four for judgeships, one as US attorney

Four of the nominees have worked as assistant federal prosecutors.

WASHINGTON (CN) — President Joe Biden announced four judicial nominees Wednesday and one nomination for U.S. attorney.

Jerry Edwards Jr. is nominated for the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana. Since last year, Edwards has served as first assistant U.S. attorney in the district after a previous roles as chief of the civil division and an assistant U.S. attorney.

He was previously an associate, shareholder and director at Blanchard, Walker, O’Quin & Roberts in Shreveport. Edwards graduated from Vermont Law School after receiving his bachelor's degree from Georgia State University.

For a seat in Louisiana's Eastern District, Biden tapped another assistant U.S. attorney, Brandon Scott Long, who has held that role in New Orleans since 2014. He worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia for four years before that. Additionally, from 2020 to 2021, Long was detailed to serve as deputy chief of staff for the director of the FBI.

Long moved to government work after working as an associate at King & Spalding. He got his law degree from Duke University and his bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at Austin.

Philip Hadji, who has been a civilian attorney with the Office of the General Counsel at the Department of the Navy since 2011, has been nominated to the U.S. Court of Federal Claims.

Hadji received his bachelor's degree from Hamilton College, his juris doctor from Case Western Reverse University School of Law and his master of laws degree from George Washington University.

In another move in the nation's capital, Biden chose Kenechukwu Onyemaechi Okocha for a seat on the District of Columbia Superior Court. Okocha has been an assistant U.S. attorney in the district since 2011 and has been deputy chief of the Sex Offense and Domestic Violence Division in that office since 2019. He previously served as an assistant district attorney in Dane County, Wisconsin. 

Okocha graduated from the University of Wisconsin School of Law after receiving his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin. 

Biden's final nomination Wednesday is another assistant U.S. attorney. He tapped Rebecca Lutzko to move into the top role for the Northern District of Ohio, where she has worked since 2005.

Prior to joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office, she was an associate at BakerHostetler. 

Lutzko received her bachelor's degree from Boston University and went to law school at Georgetown University.

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Categories / Courts, Law, National, Politics

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