DOJ's Liam Hardy to be nominated for Court of Appeals judgeship

Liam Hardy

A vacancy is expected this summer on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. President Donald J. Trump has announced his intention to fill it with Liam P. Hardy. From the official announcement:

Liam Hardy currently serves as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel at the United States Department of Justice. Previously, Mr. Hardy was a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Kirkland & Ellis, LLP. Mr. Hardy also serves as a Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School, and as an Adjunct Professor at Notre Dame Law School. Upon graduation from law school, Mr. Hardy served as a law clerk to Judge Margaret Ryan on the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces. He later served as a law clerk to Chief Judge David B. Sentelle on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and to Associate Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court of the United States. Mr. Hardy earned his B.S.E., magna cum laude, from Princeton University, his M.S. from Stanford University, and his J.D., cum laude, from Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as the Senior Administrative Editor on the Georgetown Law Journal.

Mr. Hardy, who will fill the seat currently held by Judge Ryan, will be the third former law clerk (commissioner) at the court to have been elevated to its bench (and the third to have clerked for Justice Thomas). The others who clerked at the court are the late Robinson O. Everett, who had been a commissioner in the chambers of Judge Paul W. Brosman (author of the Brosman Doctrine) at the then Court of Military Appeals, and John E. Sparks, who currently sits on CAAF and had been a law clerk to Chief Judge James E. Baker (whom he succeeded).