A former state attorney general, a federal prosecutor and a private attorney are being recommended for a federal judgeship in Hawaii.
U.S. Sens. Mazie K. Hirono and Brian Schatz recommended Tuesday that President Barack Obama consider former Attorney General David Louie, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill Otake and private attorney Clare Connors to replace Chief Judge Susan Oki Mollway when she becomes a senior judge Nov. 6. Senior judge status is a form of semiretirement for federal judges, who are appointed for life.
Connors, Louie and Otake were among those recommended by the Federal Judicial Selection Commission, created by the Hawaii lawmakers in March. The seven-member commission reviewed more than 30 applications.
Louie, a University of California, Berkeley, law school graduate, was admitted to the Hawaii bar in 1977. In 2011, Gov. Neil Abercrombie appointed Louie state attorney general. He served until 2014.
Otake, an ‘Iolani School graduate, spent most of her legal career in criminal litigation as a prosecuting attorney. She began her career as a deputy prosecuting attorney for King County, Wash. She was a clerk for Hawaii State Supreme Court Justice Simeon Acoba before returning to Washington state to serve as an assistant U.S. attorney. In 2014 she became an assistant U.S. attorney for Hawaii.
Connors, a Punahou School and Harvard Law School graduate, is a trial attorney who began her legal career in 2001 as a clerk for federal Judge David Alan Ezra, then chief judge of the U.S. District Court for Hawaii. After her clerkship she was admitted to the Department of Justice Honors program, where she worked as a trial attorney for the Tax Division. She also worked as a special assistant U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia before joining the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Hawaii. She is now in private practice.
Hirono and Schatz wrote in a letter to the president, "We arrived at these recommendations after creating a commission of distinguished members of the Hawaii bar and tasking them with receiving and screening applications. From the applications the commission received, a short list of candidates was submitted to our offices for interviews. The commission’s review process coupled with our own interviews helped us identify individuals with outstanding qualifications who we believe would make excellent nominees to the court."
