Norton to Introduce Her Judicial Nominee Rudolph Contreras at Senate Judiciary Hearing Today

WASHINGTON, DC -- Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) will introduce U.S. District Court Judge for the District of Columbia nominee Rudolph Contreras, whom Norton recommended to President Obama, at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today, October 4, 2011, at 3:00 p.m. in 226 Dirksen Senate Office Building. Contreras would be only the second Latino to serve on the U.S. District Court here. He began his career with the law firm Jones Day and was then hired as a young lawyer by then U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Eric Holder. Mr. Contreras now serves as Chief of the Civil Division in the Office of the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia and has spent most of his career as an assistant U.S. attorney in this city, rising to become a top lawyer in our U.S. Attorney's office. He is a graduate of University of Pennsylvania Law School, cum laude and Order of the Coif, where he served on the law review.

"Mr. Contreras is a gifted lawyer and manager who has already had a remarkable legal career," Norton said. "Two judges currently serving on our U.S. District Court came from the same post Mr. Contreras now holds in our U.S. Attorney's office. I have no doubt that he will be easily confirmed."

President Obama, like President Clinton, granted Norton senatorial courtesy to recommend federal district court judges, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, and other important federal law enforcement officials in the District. Four Norton recommendations to President Obama for District Court judges here--Amy Berman Jackson, Robert L. Wilkins, Beryl A. Howell, and James E. Boasberg have been confirmed and are serving. The Congresswoman appointed a 17-member commission of D.C. residents, chaired by Pauline Schneider, to investigate candidates and give her recommendations, which she uses to help select her final choices to submit to the President.

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