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President Trump Nominates Kevin Newsom For Eleventh Circuit

5/15/17

By: William H. Buechner, Jr.

President Trump has nominated Birmingham attorney Kevin Newsom to fill a vacancy in the Eleventh Circuit. avantNewsom was among President Trump’s first 10 judicial nominees for vacancies in the circuit courts and district courts. He would succeed Joel Dubina, who took senior status in 2013.

Newsom currently is chairman of the appellate group at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP in Birmingham. Newsom clerked for former U.S. Supreme Court Justice David Souter from 2000-2001. In 2003, Newsom was appointed Alabama Solicitor General by then Alabama Attorney General (and currently Eleventh Circuit Judge William Pryor) and served as Alabama Solicitor General until 2007, when he joined Bradley Arant.

Newsom has argued four cases in the U.S. Supreme Court and at least 35 cases in the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Perhaps the most notable of these cases is Riley v. Kennedy, 553 U.S. 406 (2008), where Newsom prevailed in a Voting Rights Act case holding that an election procedure invalidated by the Alabama Supreme Court was never in force or effect, and that reinstatement of the previous election procedure therefore did not require preclearance by the U.S. Department of Justice.

In confirmed, Newsom could have a substantial impact on employment law (as well as many other areas of law) in the Eleventh Circuit. For example, if confirmed relatively quickly (the confirmation process for circuit judges and district judges often is very slow and tedious), Newsom could have an opportunity to participate if the Eleventh Circuit grants the plaintiff’s petition for rehearing en banc in Evans v. Georgia Regional Hospital, 850 F.3d 1248 (11th Cir. 2017). In that case a panel (including Judge Pryor) held that Title VII does not address employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

For any questions, please contact  Bill Buechner at bbuechner@fmglaw.com.