ABA ratings of presidential federal judicial nominees
ABA ratings during the Trump administration
Total ratings: 30
Well qualified ratings: 21
Not qualified ratings: 0
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Candidates for federal judgeships must be nominated by the U.S. president and secure their confirmation from theU.S. Senate. Upon nomination, the candidate fills out a questionnaire that is forwarded for review to theSenate Judiciary Committee. The committee holds one or more hearings with the nominee, who is questioned about his or her judicial philosophy, legal experience, and fitness for confirmation. The committee then votes on whether to forward the nomination to the full Senate for a vote. Either the nominee is confirmed or the nomination is returned to the president, who may re-nominate the candidate.

During his four years in office, the ABA offered ratings for 245 of PresidentJoe Biden's (D) nominees. The ABA rated 207 of those nomineeswell qualified, 35 nomineesqualified, and three nominees asqualified and well qualified.

• Click here to learn more about the role of rating organizations in the nomination process.
• Click here to learn more about theAmerican Bar Association (ABA) and its rating system.
• Click here to learn more about how the ABA's rating process works.
• Click here to learn more about ABA ratings.
• Click here to learn more about nominees rated not qualified by the ABA.
• Click here to learn more about research on the ABA rating system.

The role of rating organizations in the nomination process

See also:United States federal courts

A variety of organizations, interest groups, and members of the public submit ratings and other comments about judicial nominees. Prior to the Bush administration's decision—and between the Bush and Trump presidencies—only the ABA was granted access to candidate information prior to nomination, which allowed the group to release its ratings before others.

The ABA began rating nominees to the judiciary in 1956, during the administration of PresidentDwight Eisenhower (R). Bush and Trump were the first two presidents since then to opt against granting the ABA special access to candidates’ background information.

The White House counsel’sletter to the ABA said the administration “welcomes the ABA to evaluate judicial candidates, just as it welcomes them from any other professional organization or interest group,” adding:

TheFederalist Society played a role in advising both the executive and legislative branches on judicial nominees during the Bush and Trump administrations. The Federalist Society is a legal organization that says it was “founded on the principles that the state exists to preserve freedom, that the separation of governmental powers is central to our Constitution, and that it is emphatically the province and duty of the judiciary to say what the law is, not what it should be.”

In 2017, Steven Calibrese, a co-founder of the group, said:

In 2021, ABA president Patricia Lee Refo said that theBiden administration informed the group that it would not consult with them on federal judicial nominees prior to submitting nominations to the U.S. Senate.^[2][3]

The ABA and its rating system

See also:American Bar Association

The American Bar Association (ABA) was founded in 1878 by 75 lawyers from 20 states and the District of Columbia. As of 2018, its membership numbered about 400,000 individuals and 3,500 entities. It is a nonprofit501(c)(3) organization. The ABA describes its mission as "serving our members, improving the legal profession, eliminating bias and enhancing diversity, and advancing the rule of law throughout the United States and around the world."^[4]

The ABA is also the accrediting body for U.S. law schools, publishes model ethics rules, offers continuing legal education courses, and publishes theABA Journal.^[4]

The ABA first provided ratings of judicial nominees at the invitation of Herbert Brownell, Jr., attorney general for the Eisenhower administration, who asked the group to rate the qualifications ofWilliam Brennan.^[5][6]

How does the ABA's rating process work?

The ABA's standing committee on the federal judiciaryissues ratings for everyArticle III judicial nominee commissioned to a life term on a federal court. The committee is made up of 15 members: two from the9th Circuit, one from each of the otherfederal circuits, and the chair of the committee. The president of the ABA appoints all members to staggered three-year terms. No member can serve more than two terms.

The committee focuses on three areas in its evaluation:^[7]

An initial investigation is performed by a committee member from the nominee’s circuit, including an examination of the nominee’s personal data (collected by theU.S. Department of Justice), legal writings, confidential interviews with people the nominee has worked with, and an interview with the candidate.

The evaluator then prepares a report for the committee, including one of the following rating recommendations:^[7]

If the evaluator intends to recommend a “not qualified” rating, the committee chair appoints a second evaluator to conduct another review, which may include additional interviews with colleagues and another interview with the candidate. The committee then reviews the report (or two reports, if a second investigation was conducted). Each member votes on a rating, with the majority determining the committee’s official rating. A tiebreaker vote goes to the committee chair.

The rating may also be accompanied by the designation of “a majority” (eight to nine votes), a “substantial majority” (10 to 13 votes), or “unanimous.”

ABA ratings

As of January 14, 2025, the ABA had offered ratings for 245 of PresidentJoe Biden's (D) nominees. The ABA rated 207 of those nomineeswell qualified, 35 nomineesqualified, and three nominees asqualified and well qualified.

Not qualified rating

Ballotpedia conducted an analysis of all ABA ratings since the presidency ofGeorge H.W. Bush (R). This is the period for which the ABA offers comprehensive data. Since January 20, 1989, 22 nominees were rated “not qualified” by the ABA. Fifteen of those 22 nominees were confirmed. In six instances, the ABA issued a unanimous “not qualified” rating. Six nominees were withdrawn.

The table below lists all 22 announced nominees rated not qualified since 1989:

Research on the ABA rating system

Note: Ballotpedia located three academic studies on ABA ratings. Pleaseemail us if you know of additional studies that may be included here.

• Professor James Lindgren compared the ABA ratings given to circuit court nominees of PresidentGeorge H.W. Bush and PresidentBill Clinton and found that Bush's circuit court nominees with prior judicial experience fared as well as or better than Clinton's nominees with prior judicial experience. However, he found that Bush circuit court nominees without judicial experience fared worse in the ratings than Clinton nominees without judicial experience. He concluded that the ABA had a liberal bias in favor of Clinton nominees.^[8]
• Professor Maya Sen found that higher ABA ratings were correlated with a higher likelihood of confirmation, but that higher-ranked candidates did not perform measurably better than lower-ranked candidates as judges (as measured by the percentage of reversals on appeal of their judicial decisions). She also concluded that women and minority candidates were less likely to be highly rated by the ABA.^[9]
• In a 2012 study, Professors Susan Navarro Smelcer, Amy Steigerwalt, and Richard L. Vinning, Jr. found that for U.S. Court of Appeals nominees between 1977 and 2008 (the end of the Bush presidency) there was “evidence of bias against Republican nominees in the ABA’s ratings.”Cite error: Invalid<ref> tag; invalid names, e.g. too many

See also

• The Biden administration on federal courts
• ABA ratings of presidential federal judicial nominees
• ABA ratings during the Trump administration
• Judicial vacancies during the Biden administration
• Current federal judicial vacancies
• American Bar Association

External links

• Search Google News for this topic
• American Bar Association ratings

Footnotes