Nance appointed to the ABAs Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary

Cynthia Nance, dean emeritus and the Nathan G. Gordon Professor of Law at the University of Arkansas, has been appointed to the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary as the representative for the Eighth Circuit.

The ABA’s Standing Committee consists of 15 members — two members from the Ninth Circuit, one member from each of the other 12th federal judicial circuits and one member-at-large. The members are appointed for staggered three-year terms by the ABA president.

Each member contributes several hundred hours per year to the public service.

The committee evaluates the professional qualifications of prospective nominees to the lower federal courts — the U.S. District Courts and Courts of Appeals — in advance of the president making a nomination. The committee’s evaluations of the professional qualifications of nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court are conducted on a post-nomination basis.

In conducting its evaluation of each prospective nominee, the committee focuses strictly on professional qualifications: integrity, professional competence and judicial temperament. It does not take into account a prospective nominee’s philosophy, political affiliation or ideology.

The committee’s objective is to provide impartial peer-review evaluations of the professional qualifications of prospective judicial nominees in order to assist the White House in assessing whether such individuals should be nominated to the federal judiciary.

Nance joined the UA faculty as an assistant professor in 1994 and served as dean of the law school from 2006 to 2011. She teaches courses in labor and employment law, torts and poverty law.