Senate confirms Patrick Schiltz nomination to be federal judge
The U.S. Senate has unanimously confirmed the nomination of St. Thomas law professor Patrick Schiltz to be a federal judge.
President George Bush nominated Schiltz in December to the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota. Schiltz was recommended to President Bush by Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.). He also had the support of Sen. Mark Dayton (D.-Minn.). The American Bar Association awarded Schiltz a unanimous "Well Qualified" rating, the highest rating that a judicial nominee can achieve.
Patrick Schiltz
A native of Duluth, Schiltz graduated summa cum laude from the College of St. Scholastica and magna cum laude from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. After serving as a law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Schiltz practiced law for eight years at Faegre & Benson, Minnesota's second-largest law firm.
He left practice in 1995 to join the faculty of Notre Dame Law School, where he quickly became an award-winning teacher and a nationally recognized scholar in the areas of legal ethics and appellate procedure.
In 2000, Schiltz accepted an invitation from Father Dennis Dease to return to Minnesota and help establish the new law school at the University of St. Thomas. First as associate dean and then as interim dean, Schiltz had responsibility for most aspects of developing the new law school.
Schiltz will serve as one of seven federal trial judges in Minnesota, succeeding Judge Richard Kyle. Schiltz will maintain his chambers in the Warren E. Burger Federal Building in St. Paul. Schiltz and his wife, Elizabeth Schiltz, also a St. Thomas law professor, have four children.
