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  St. Thomas Dean Said to Be on Court List

By Pam Louwagie and Rob Hotakainen
Minneapolis Star-Tribune [Minnesota]
November 18, 2005

A University of St. Thomas law professor who once clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is the president's probable pick for a federal judgeship in Minnesota, according to a source familiar with the nomination process.

Patrick J. Schiltz, a Harvard Law School graduate, is going through FBI background checks before his name is nominated to the Senate for confirmation, the source said. A separate source on Capitol Hill said that the FBI has contacted his office to make inquiries about Schiltz and that no inquiries were made about other candidates.

Schiltz declined to comment Thursday. A spokesman for Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., said the senator's office doesn't comment on such matters. Senators of the same political party as the president typically recommend appointments for federal judgeships.

It is unclear when the background checks would be completed. The judgeship opened after U.S. District Judge Richard Kyle took senior status last spring.

Schiltz emerged from a group of candidates that included Minneapolis attorneys Roger Magnuson and Gary Haugen, the source said.

Schiltz, 45, was a partner at Faegre & Benson in Minneapolis when he and his wife left the firm to teach at Notre Dame Law School in 1995. They moved back to Minnesota in 2000, and he became a founding associate dean of the University of St. Thomas School of Law in Minneapolis.

He represented religious organizations in more than 500 clergy sex abuse cases.

He wrote articles that, while condemning clergy abuse, said recent media attention was misdirected because most cases were more than 10 years old and most Catholic dioceses had cleaned up their acts by the early 1990s.

In an article in the national Catholic weekly America, he wrote that the church had a moral obligation to compensate victims of clergy abuse fairly, but suggested it be done in an alternative system to the courtroom. When the church pays, he wrote in another article, the people who pay are the people in the pews or those whom the church serves.

He also has been outspoken about ethics, writing a law review article about lawyers being unhappy, unhealthy and perceived as unethical. Schiltz pointed to money as the cause and warned students that the culture of the profession -- especially in big firms -- would make it difficult to practice law ethically. In response, some attorneys criticized him for painting lawyers with a broad, unkind brush.

A biography of Schiltz on a St. Thomas website says the article has become assigned reading in law school classes.

Coleman sent a short list of candidates to the White House for consideration, said Minneapolis attorney Robert Weinstine, who was a member of a committee that helped Coleman's office review candidates.

Weinstine did not disclose names of possible candidates but said the committee met with interested candidates and reported back to the senator. Coleman then looked at their advice and recommendations and narrowed the field further, he said. Names were then sent to the White House.

 
 

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