Thursday, May 12, 2011
Page 3
Obama Nominates Magistrate to District Judgeship
By a MetNews Staff Writer
President Obama yesterday nominated three candidates for federal district judgeships, including one in San Diego.
Magistrate Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo was nominated to be a district judge for the Southern District of California. If confirmed by the Senate, she would fill a vacancy created by Judge Jeffrey Miller’s decision to take senior status.
Bencivengo has been a magistrate judge since 2005, prior to which she was an attorney in private practice. She joined Gray Cary Ames & Frye—which later merged into DLA Piper US, LLP—in 1988 as a litigation associate, becoming a partner in 1996.
Her primary expertise in practice was intellectual property litigation, and she served as national co-chair of the firm’s patent litigation practice. She holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s from Rutgers University in New Jersey and graduated from the University of Michigan in 1988.
She was recommended to the White House by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who said in a statement:
“I am confident that her respected judicial temperament, as well as her valuable prior experience as an intellectual property lawyer for over 15 years, will enable her to serve the Southern District well as a U.S. District Judge.”
Also nominated yesterday were Richard G. Andrews, head of the Criminal Division of the Delaware Department of Justice and a former federal prosecutor, to be a judge for the District of Delaware and Toledo attorney Jeffrey J. Helmick, who practices federal criminal law, to serve in the Northern District of Ohio.
Copyright 2011, Metropolitan News Company