by Mike Donoghue

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-7 on Thursday to advance the name of Attorney Mary Kay Lanthier of Orwell to serve as the next federal judge for Vermont.

It was somewhat smooth sailing for Lanthier at the latest hearing, although the Judiciary Committee went into recess for more than an hour shortly before the members were due to vote on her nomination.

When it came time to reconvene Thursday afternoon, the hearing room was unavailable, and the Senators moved to another room without live streaming services for the public to watch the proceedings.

Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, the committee chair, noted at the start of the hearing that the Senate was trying to finish lots of business before leaving Washington for the summer recess on Thursday.

Lanthier’s name will go to the full Senate, but it will be after Labor Day when Congress resumes.

Lanthier also had smooth sailing in June when the same Senate committee conducted a hearing for four women to serve various judicial posts – two for courts of appeal and two for the district court level.  The other three nominees found their going a little rougher that day.

Lanthier, 53, has been the supervisory attorney for the Rutland County Public Defender’s Office since 2007.

She was one of seven women nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden that were on the agenda Thursday for consideration by the committee.  The Democrats, which have an 11-10 edge over Republicans on the committee, prevailed on each of the seven votes to advance the nominations.

Lanthier and a judge for Pennsylvania both received 13 votes – the most among all seven candidates on Thursday.

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt. 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.  Welch, in his first senate term, played a key role in getting the nomination moving.  

Lanthier’s name popped to the head of the Vermont list earlier this summer after a screening panel overseen by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. initially had proposed three other people.

Three other lawyers that had been proposed for the judgeship in January by the screening committee were put on the back burner this spring without explanation, while the FBI and Department of Justice vetted Lanthier, Vermont News First reported.

Assistant Federal Defender Steven L. Barth, Vermont Law School Professor Jessica C. Brown and First Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael P. Drescher were deemed initially qualified by the Vermont screening committee.

Biden, however, has made clear he is looking for women, people of color, other minorities and public defenders to serve as judges.

That appeared to put Brown, who was a public defender for 24 years in New Hampshire and Vermont, out in front over the two white men.  But Vermont News First reported in June that the Department of Justice and the FBI were completing a background check on Lanthier.

President Joe Biden subsequently announced he would nominate Lanthier for the lifetime appointment as one of the two trial court judges for Vermont.  No explanation was given for bypassing the first three.  Brown has since accepted the post of Burlington City Attorney.

Vermont is seeking a replacement for Judge Geoffrey W. Crawford of Burlington, who has served since August 2014.   Crawford, 70, is taking Senior Status, which will allow him a reduced load.  He is a former state trial court judge and associate justice of the Vermont Supreme Court.

If approved by the full U.S. Senate, Lanthier would be based at the federal courthouse at 151 West Street in Rutland.  The title of chief federal judge was passed back from Crawford to Vermont’s other fulltime district judge, Christina Reiss in Burlington, in July.  She had previously held the post from 2010 to 2017.

Welch has been under pressure to help ramrod the Lanthier nomination through because Judge Reiss will be the lone fulltime district court judge serving the state as of Aug. 10. 

Reiss is able to designate some additional court cases and hearings to U.S. Magistrate Judge Kevin Doyle in Burlington.

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.

The annual pay for federal district court judges was bumped this year from $232,600 to $243,300.

Lanthier wrote on her application that 100 percent of her time as a lawyer has been spent in state courts.

The senators never asked Lanthier at her June confirmation hearing about the selection process and the controversial screening committee of Democrats and Progressives.

The screening panel Sanders helped set up for the Vermont judgeship has come under fire from lawyers, courthouse personnel and the public.  Vermont New First reported three of the seven lawyers selected by Sanders for the screening have never filed or defended a single case in federal court in Vermont.  A fourth member had less than a dozen cases in Vermont over the years.

It was shortly after the news broke that Lanthier was approached by a member of Sanders staff for an interview.

Former U.S. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy always used a 9-member screening committee with three picked by him, three by the junior senator and three by the Vermont Bar Association.

Sanders opted to appoint three, but allowed Welch and the VBA only two each.  His office had refused to say who had picked which members, but it soon became clear from others.       

Lanthier has dodged the Vermont news media since her name first surfaced as a candidate.

The June hearing in Washington, D.C. marked the first public discussion of Lanthier’s nomination.  There has been no chance for the public to weigh in during any hearing in Vermont.

The 11-10 edge of Democrats over Republicans on the judiciary committee can be critical as Biden is trying to push through as many judicial appointments as possible before the General Election in November in case the Democrats lose the White House. 

Lanthier had a half dozen letters of support from state prosecutors, the Defender General, a former longtime Rutland County police chief, a retired state judge and the president of the Vermont Bar Association.

One letter also came from the American College of Trial Lawyers and signed by Vermont Chapter Chair Michael Desautels, the Chief Federal Defender in Vermont and past Chapter Chair Ritchie E. Berger of Burlington.  Lanthier is also a past chair for the group.

It was co-signed by two dozen other members.

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.

Lanthier received her undergraduate degree from Amherst College in 1993 and her law degree from Northeastern University School of Law in 1996. She taught either one or two evidence labs each spring semester between 2017 and 2023 at Vermont Law and Graduate School.

She serves as the treasurer for the Vermont Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.