The U.S. Senate voted 47-43 on Monday, July 8 to confirm federal trial court judge and Wilmette resident and Skokie native Nancy L. Maldonado to be a judge on the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The vote elevates Maldonado to a court one level below the U.S. Supreme Court that hears appeals from federal courts in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. Maldonado, who has been a federal trial court judge in Chicago since 2022, will become the first person of Hispanic descent to serve as a judge on the 7th Circuit, which has 11 judgeships.
A graduate of Harvard University and Columbia University’s law school, Maldonado, 48, was born in Skokie and lived in the village until 2015. She will replace 7th Circuit Judge Ilana Diamond Rovner, who upon Maldonado’s confirmation will take senior status, a form of semi-retirement with a reduced caseload.
Like her current position as a federal trial court judge, Maldonado’s new role as a federal appeals court judge carries with it life tenure.
Immediately after law school, Maldonado worked as a law clerk for Judge Ruben Castillo of the Northern District. She then practiced law at the Chicago law firm of Miner, Barnhill & Galland from 2003 until 2022. She was promoted to a partner at the firm in 2010, and while in private practice, specialized in representing plaintiffs in employment, civil rights and fraud cases.
The office of Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, first reached out to Maldonado in January to inquire about her previous interest in the 7th Circuit vacancy as Maldonado wrote in a questionnaire that she submitted to the U.S. Senate judiciary committee upon her nomination. She then interviewed with representatives from the White House Counsel’s office and the U.S. justice department, with President Joe Biden formally nominating her to the 7th Circuit judgeship in late February.
At a March Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, Durbin praised Maldonado’s qualifications, noting that since being confirmed to be a federal judge in 2022, she has issued more than 250 written decisions.
“It has been the honor of a lifetime to be entrusted with administering justice in my home district,” Maldonado told senators in March. “I truly believe we are one of the best districts in the nation. The district court is a high-volume court and it’s my job to give parties what they need. I’m still learning, and that’s the wonderful thing about the law — you can never know it all.”
Maldonado’s questionnaire revealed that upon becoming a judge, she gave up her side job as a yoga instructor in Evanston. She had taught yoga at the Heaven Meets Earth yoga studio in northwest Evanston from 2018 until 2022.
Monday’s vote was largely along party lines, although two Democratic senators voted against Maldonado’s nomination. She becomes the 43rd federal appeals court judge appointed by Biden since he took office, which means that the president now has appointed 24% of all federal appeals court judges nationwide. Biden also has appointed 156 federal trial court judges and one U.S. Supreme Court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Maldonado had been awaiting a vote on her elevation to the 7th Circuit since April 18 but could not be reached for comment regarding her Senate confirmation.
However, after the vote, University of Richmond Law Professor Carl Tobias, an expert on federal judicial confirmations, called Maldonado “a well-qualified mainstream judge who will be an excellent appellate judge.”
Tobias noted that Maldonado’s nomination had drawn opposition from some Republican senators who pointed to her having a backlog of cases and deciding matters too slowly.
“However, the judge persuasively responded (in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing) that she takes the time needed to be sure her rulings are correct, and the backlog arose because three members of the (Northern District) had taken senior status near the same time, and the district assigned many of their cases to her,” Tobias said.
Another expert on the federal judiciary, George Washington. University Law School Associate Professor John P. Collins Jr., called Maldonado “the fifth highly-qualified judge that President Biden has appointed to the Seventh Circuit.”
“She’s the third appointee to flip a seat previously held by a Republican appointee, although Judge Rovner often sided with her more liberal colleagues,” Collins said. “I don’t understand the lack of bipartisan support — (Sens. Susan) Collins, (Lisa) Murkowski, (Joe) Manchin and (Kyrsten) Sinema all (previously) voted to confirm Maldonado to the district court.”
Tobias also noted that Maldonado’s confirmation and elevation to the 7th Circuit would make her a “strong candidate” for the U.S. Supreme Court, particularly as some interest groups have argued that Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan should consider resigning under a president who is in the same political party as the president who appointed them.
“Justice Sotomayor has given no indication that she intends to resign, but should (she) resign, Judge Maldonado would be a strong candidate, as there are rather few Hispanic (judges) on the (federal) appeals courts,” Tobias said.
Collins was less sanguine about Maldonado’s eventual chances for a seat on the high court.
“That’s not really a knock on her — just a reflection that there are a lot of really good candidates that may check more boxes,” he said.
Bob Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.
