Busiest courts to get judges, save one

Assembly makes fast work of judicial elections

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 15, 2013
Tags: General Assembly, Judgeships, Judicial Selection

Lawmakers have set a fast pace during the 2013 term, a short session for the General Assembly. Members of the House and Senate courts committees were quick to get down to business on Jan. 14, when they interviewed judges appointed by the governor or by local courts to seats left vacant at the end of [...]

McDonnell proposes funding for 15 judgeships

By Peter Vieth
Published: December 13, 2012
Tags: Gov. Bob McDonnell, Judgeships

Gov. Bob McDonnell’s budget for fiscal year 2014 includes funding to fill the 15 neediest Virginia trial court vacancies – with one exception – according to raw caseload numbers from the Supreme Court of Virginia. McDonnell proposes to fill five circuit court vacancies, eight general district court vacancies and two juvenile and domestic relations court [...]

Judge choices dominate legal highlights for 2012

By Peter Vieth
Published: December 10, 2012
Tags: General Assembly, Judgeships, Lawyer Discipline, Million-Dollar Verdicts, Rules of Evidence, Virginia State Bar, Year in Review

Judges and judgeships again made headlines in Virginia legal news in 2012, with the General Assembly earning national attention with its rejection of an openly gay candidate for a general district court seat. The leading VLW story was a report that, in a year of austerity, legislators with access to the budget process managed to [...]

Who’s on Obama’s Supreme Court short list?

By Kimberly Atkins
Published: November 27, 2012
Tags: Judgeships, U.S. Supreme Court

President Barack Obama’s reelection – and the fact that four of the current nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are at or above the age of 74 – means that the president will likely appoint at least one more justice to the high court, perhaps as soon as next year. As with his first [...]

Appointments by circuit judges would be limited

By Peter Vieth
Published: October 12, 2012
Tags: General Assembly, Judgeships

Sen. Richard H. Black wants to prevent circuit judges from second-guessing the judgeship choices of the General Assembly, but his proposal may cast a wider net than he intended. In the wake of the House of Delegates’ controversial rejection of Tracy Thorne-Begland for a Richmond general district judgeship earlier this year, and Thorne-Begland’s later appointment [...]

High court debuts judicial mentorship program

By Peter Vieth
Published: July 16, 2012
Tags: General District Courts, Judgeships, Justice Cynthia D. Kinser, Justice LeRoy F. Millette Jr.

If you’ve ever been isolated in a new job, wondering who to turn to for answers to simple questions as you learned the ropes, you can appreciate the plight of a rural judge who has just donned the robe. Miles from other judges in the circuit or district, the new judge ponders who to call [...]

Richmond judges pick Thorne-Begland

By The Associated Press
Published: June 26, 2012
Tags: General Assembly, General District Courts, Judgeships, Richmond Circuit Court

(AP) The Richmond Circuit Court on June 14 appointed a gay Richmond prosecutor to a General District Court judgeship a month after legislators blocked the appointment. Chief Judge Richard D. Taylor Jr. signed an order naming Tracy Thorne-Begland to the seat beginning July 1. His appointment will expire 30 days after the start of the [...]

NoVa wants more say on court study panel

By Peter Vieth
Published: June 22, 2012
Tags: Bar Associations, General Assembly, General District Courts, Judge Thomas D. Horne, Judgeships, Justice Cynthia D. Kinser

Northern Virginia lawyers and legislators are pushing for more representatives from their region on the committee that will oversee a study of how judges should be allocated in Virginia. The Fairfax Bar Association and 31 General Assembly members have sent separate letters to Chief Justice Cynthia D. Kinser asking her to appoint additional members from [...]

Focus turns now to unfilled judgeships

By Peter Vieth
Published: May 25, 2012
Tags: General Assembly, Gov. Bob McDonnell, Judge Teresa M. Chafin, Judgeships

As the dust settled from the 2012 General Assembly, the empty seat on Richmond’s general district bench was not the only funded judgeship left unfilled. While the House of Delegates’ vote to block the election of Richmond prosecutor Tracy Thorne-Begland to a judgeship made headlines around the country, there were other vacancies left unfilled and [...]