Senate Panel to Hold 9th Circuit Confirmation Hearing for Judge Lucy Koh

Lucy Koh, a San Jose federal judge who has ruled on some of Silicon Valley's most important legal battles in recent years, could make history if the Senate confirms her nomination to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit.

Koh, the first Korean-American to serve as a U.S. District Court judge, would be the second to serve on a federal appeals court and the first Korean-American woman.

On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a confirmation hearing on Koh's nomination.

The hearing comes nearly five months after President Obama nominated her.

She has the backing of California's two U.S. senators, a national association representing tens of thousands of Asian/Pacific-American attorneys and Northern California's largest newspaper.

But, will Republicans, who control the Senate, back her?

"If Lucy Koh can't be confirmed, then the state of our partisan political 'freeze' is really quite disheartening," said Rory Little, a UC Hastings College of the Law professor. "I've known Lucy for 20 years. She is immensely well qualified for the job."

There is no reason to think that GOP senators oppose Koh based on her record, said Arthur Hellman, a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on the 9th Circuit.  "Her reputation is based on the IP [intellectual property] cases she has handled, not red-button issues like abortion and same-sex marriage," Helman said in an email. "Nothing in her record suggests that she's an ideologue."

Koh was the judge in trials over Apple's patent lawsuit against Samsung and workers who sued several large technology companies over allegations they conspired not to poach each other's employees.

Wednesday's hearing comes amid a severe partisan divide over President Obama's nomination of federal appellate Judge Merrick Garland to fill the seat left vacant by the February death of Antonin Scalia.

It's unclear if that will get in the way of Koh's confirmation. Some Republicans may want to close the door on judicial confirmations to let the next president fill federal court vacancies, Hellman said. But others may end up letting some Obama nominees through to show that they're not being obstructionist, he added.

Proponents of adding diversity to the federal bench say Koh and Florence Pan, a Chinese-American and Stanford Law grad whom Obama has nominated to the U.S. District Court for Washington, D.C., should be confirmed. The Judiciary Committee is also scheduled to hold a hearing on Pan's nomination on Wednesday.

"Judge Lucy Koh and Judge Florence Pan are two highly qualified nominees," Jin Y. Hwang, president of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, said in a statement. "Both are experienced and fair jurists."

In an editorial, the San Francisco Chronicle urged the same thing on Sunday. "Koh has proved herself as an accomplished, moderate, evenhanded judge who would bring necessary diversity to the Ninth Circuit," the newspaper said.