Orrin Hatch: “it is my high honor and privilege to speak on the confirmation of Professor Michael McConnell to the Tenth Circuit Court…”

“it is my high honor and privilege to speak on the confirmation of Professor Michael McConnell to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. Professor McConnell is a Utahn, a scholar of the highest talent, and a man of profound integrity and judicial temperament. Professor McConnell holds the prestigious Presidential Professorship at the University of Utah College of Law in Salt Lake City. He began his legal career at the University of Chicago Law School, where he was Comment Editor of the Law Review and graduated Order of the Coif. Thereafter he served as a law clerk for two of the leading liberal jurists of the 20th century: Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. and D.C. Court of Appeals Judge J. Skelly Wright. After completing those clerkships, Mike became Assistant General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget and then served as Assistant to the Solicitor General. He then joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School, where he was awarded tenure and later the William B. Graham Professorship. In addition to his academic credentials, Professor McConnell is an able and experienced appellate lawyer. He has argued eleven cases before the United States Supreme Court--and won nine of them. In fact, the Los Angeles Daily Journal named one of his presentations to the Supreme Court ``best oral argument'' of the year.”