Senate Confirms Judge Orrick for California

SAN FRANCISCO (CN) - The U.S. Senate on Wednesday confirmed William H. Orrick III as a federal judge for the Northern District of California.

The Senate confirmed Orrick by 51-47 vote. He will replace U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer, who will take senior status.

President Obama nominated Orrick in June 2012 but the Senate refused to vote on the nomination. The president renominated him in January.

Orrick, 60, has worked at Coblentz, Patch, Duffy & Bass in San Francisco since 1984.

He took time out from 2009 to 2012 to work for the U.S. Department of Justice as a counselor to the assistant attorney general in the Civil Division, then as the deputy assistant attorney general for the Immigration Litigation Unit in the Civil Division. He returned to firm in August 2012.

Orrick got his B.A. from Yale in 1976 and his J.D. from Boston College Law School in 1976. His father, the late U.S. District Judge William H. Orrick Jr., served on the Northern District bench from 1974 until he died in 2003.

There are 67 vacant seats on U.S. District Courts, and 16 vacancies on U.S. Courts of Appeal. Senate Republicans have repeatedly blocked President Obama's appointees, and the president has not made it a priority to get votes on the nominations.

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