Rainey Ransom Brandt, a longtime special counsel to the chief judge of the District of Columbia Superior Court, was nominated today by President Barack Obama for a judgeship on that court.
Brandt is special counsel to Superior Court Chief Judge Lee Satterfield. She served as special counsel to two of Satterfield's predecessors, former chief judges Rufus King III, now a senior judge, and Eugene Hamilton, who died in November.
Brandt, Satterfield and King declined to comment this afternoon.
Before joining the court in 1998, Brandt taught full-time at American University in the Department of Justice, Law & Society. In 2010, the Council for Court Excellence named Brandt one of its annual Justice Potter Stewart Award honorees, which recognizes contributions to the law or the administrative process.
William Atkins, a partner in the McLean, Va., office of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, has served with Brandt on the board of the foundation of the Bar Association of the District of Columbia. Atkins said he thought she would be a good addition to the bench.
“She has wisdom beyond her years, born of experience spent at the court seeing the practice of law and the dispensation of justice up close,” he said.
The District of Columbia Judicial Nomination Commission recommended Brandt for consideration to the White House in January, along with two other attorneys, Maria-Claudia Amato, general counsel for the District of Columbia Department of Corrections, and Jason Tulley, special counsel to the director of the D.C. Public Defender Service.
The Senate Committee of Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, which handles the confirmation process for judges to Superior Court and the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, will vet Brandt’s nomination.
Prior to her nomination, Brandt’s name had been sent to the White House for consideration once before, in November 2010. That vacancy was filled by Associate Judge Jennifer Di Toro, who was confirmed last August and sworn in to the bench in October.
Brandt earned her J.D. in 1995 from Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law.
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