by Mike Donoghue
RUTLAND – The confirmation hearing for attorney Mary Kay Lanthier of Orwell to become the next federal judge in Vermont will kick off this morning (Thursday).
President Joe Biden announced last month that he was nominating Lanthier to fill the seat of Geoffrey W. Crawford, currently the chief federal judge for Vermont.
Lanthier, 53, has been the supervisory attorney for the Rutland County Public Defender’s Office since 2007.
Her confirmation has been listed on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee a few times in recent weeks, only to be taken back off. Word filtered out this week that Lanthier’s hearing was likely on Thursday. By Wednesday afternoon, Lanthier was back on the schedule for 10 a.m. Thursday.
U.S. Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt. is listed as being the chair for the hearing in the absence of Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, the regular chair.
Lanthier is among four nominations on the committee agenda. One other is for a district court seat and two are for federal circuit court posts.
The candidates will be introduced, given a chance to speak and answer questions. It is unlikely a committee vote will be taken on Thursday. If eventually approved, Lanthier must be approved by the full senate.
Welch was named to the Senate Judiciary Committee last year to replace Vermont’s former senior senator, Patrick J. Leahy, a longtime member of the powerful panel.
The Democrats have an 11-10 edge over the Republicans on the judiciary committee. That edge can be critical as Biden is trying to push through as many judicial appointments as possible before the General Election in November in case he loses the White House.
Vermont News First had reported on May 22 that Lanthier had recently moved to the head of the line to replace Crawford, who is shifting to “Senior Status.” That is like semi-retirement because he is allowed to limit how many cases he is assigned by the clerk’s office.
Three other lawyers that had been proposed for the judgeship were put on the back burner this spring without explanation, while the FBI and Department of Justice vetted Lanthier, Vermont News First reported.
They were Assistant Federal Defender Steven L. Barth, Vermont Law School Professor Jessica C. Brown and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael P. Drescher.
Vermont News First had reported in March that Barth, Brown and Drescher were the top picks by a special screening committee.
The screening panel Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. helped set up for the Vermont post has come under fire from lawyers, courthouse personnel and the public. Three of the seven lawyers selected by Sanders have never had a single case in federal court in Vermont and a fourth had less than a dozen in Vermont.
Biden, before being sworn in, had said he wanted to appoint women, public defenders, people of color and other minorities to the bench.
Lanthier began her legal career as a judicial law clerk for the trial courts in Chittenden County and Addison County from 1996 to 1998.
She was an associate at Keiner & Dumont law firm in Middlebury from 1998 to 2000 before becoming a public defender representing indigent people charged in Addison County from 2000 to 2003.
Lanthier was hired as an associate and later promoted to partner in the law firm Marsh & Wagner in Middlebury from 2003 to 2007 before taking her state job in Rutland County.
Besides criminal law, Lanthier had worked primarily on family law and workers’ compensation cases.
About half the work on the federal docket involves criminal cases. The other half is civil – a mixture that includes a wide range of cases ranging from civil rights to employment discrimination to contract disputes and more.
She has applied to be a Vermont Superior Court judge in recent years, friends said. It is unclear how many times her name went to the Vermont Governor, who makes those state appointments.
The annual pay for federal district court judges was bumped this year from $232,600 to $243,300.
Lanthier, if approved by the U.S. Senate, would be based at the federal courthouse at 151 West Street in Rutland.
Lanthier received her undergraduate degree from Amherst College in 1993 and her law degree from Northeastern University School of Law in 1996. She taught evidence labs at Vermont Law and Graduate School from 2017 to 2023.
She is a past chair of the Vermont Chapter of the American College of Trial Lawyers and serves as the treasurer for the Vermont Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.