Judge Gordon Gallagher, who has served as a federal magistrate judge for the past decade, is Biden’s fourth nominee to the federal district court bench in Colorado.
Background
Gordon Gallagher attended Macalester College in St. Paul, graduating in 1991. He then received a J.D. from the University of Denver Strum Law School in 1996.
After graduating, Gallagher spent two years at Underhill and Underhill P.C. and then joined the Mesa County District Attorney’s Office. In 2000, Gallagher became a solo practitioner.
In 2012, Gallagher was appointed to be a U.S. Magistrate Judge and has served as such since.
History of the Seat
Gallagher has been nominated for a vacancy on the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. This seat will open on February 10, 2023 when Judge William Martinez takes senior status. Gallagher was previously recommended by Colorado Senators Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper to replace Judge Christine Arguello, but fellow magistrate judge Nina Wang was chosen instead. Gallagher was then nominated to replace Martinez.
Legal Experience
Gallagher began his legal career at the firm of Underhill and Underhill P.C. before spending two years as a state prosecutor. However, the vast majority of his pre-bench career was spent as a solo practitioner, where he worked primarily in criminal defense. Among his notable cases, Gallagher represented Cheyenne Corbett, a teen mom charged with murder for the death of her baby shortly after it was born. See Teen Mom Charged with Murder Invoked Privacy Law, A.P. State & Local Wire, July 28, 2006.
Jurisprudence
Gallagher has served as a federal magistrate judge since his appointment in 2012. In this role, he presides by consent over civil matters and misdemeanors, assists district judges with discovery and settlement, and writes reports and recommendations on legal issues. Among the cases that he presided over, Gallagher handled a number of cases involving damage to federal lands. For example, he found Scott Wagner guilty of damage for building an unapproved pond partially on federal property. See Man Found Guilty for Altering and Damaging Forest Service Lands Within the Gunnison National Forest, Targeted News Service, Dec. 7, 2012. In another case, Gallagher sentenced Earl Bennett to a year of probation and $30000 in restitution for illegally building a road on federal property. See Man Sentenced for Illegally Building Road on U.S. Forest Service Land, U.S. Fed News, Aug. 27, 2018.
Writings and Statements
Gallagher has made a couple of media statements in his role as an attorney. For example, in 2003, Gallagher commented on the performance of Pamela Mackey, the defense attorney for Kobe Bryant in his rape trial. See Mike Wiggins and Michael C. Bender, Questions of Ethical Propriety Arise Over Bryant’s Defense, Cox News Service, Oct. 10, 2003.
Overall Assessment
Throughout his legal career, Gallagher has held a variety of positions, including as a prosecutor, a defense lawyer, and a judge. As such, his qualifications for a federal judgeship are undeniable. If Gallagher is given a hearing this Congress, he will likely be confirmed easily. However, given that Martinez is not taking senior status until next February and that a Republican senate might find Gallagher an acceptable nominee, it wouldn’t be surprising if Democrats prioritized other judges.
The Vetting Room 
I’m happy to see Gallagher nominated. He’s from the Western part of the state which I believe has zero representation out of the other six judges in the district. He also had an extensive pro bono background & provides legal services to Indian tribes.
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Freeman got her judicial commission yesterday, 3 weeks from the day she was confirmed.
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Awesome. With the second youngest judge on the 3rd Circuit over half a decade older than her, Freeman is in line to be chief judge one day. Bravo
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Nice! Really, really glad we were able to get her confirmed before the midterms.
I really, really hope Abudu is confirmed in November/December regardless of the result of the midterms too, because in my opinion that is just too long to make a circuit nominee wait.
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I hope Schumer comes out of the gate firing on all judicial confirmation cylinders after the recess.
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With Freeman being over half a decade younger than the next youngest judge on the 3rd circuit, she is well positioned to become chief judge some day. Bravo
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Good news but it is weird how it says “Not yet assumed office” I’ve never seen that on the FJC site.
https://www.fjc.gov/node/12588691
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“Not yet assumed office” is no longer on her page (maybe she assumed office today or over the weekend), and Theodore McKee has officially assumed senior status.
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For some reason my comments aren’t posting. It’s sending me to some Word Press to log in & if I make an account it still doesn’t post the comments. So I just used a second email address until it’s resolved…
As for Freeman, the second youngest judge on the third circuit is half a decade older than her so she should be chief judge some day in the future. Bravo
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Well, well, well. All expletives directed at the 8th circuit.
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I keep saying the 8th circuit is either the most or second most conservative circuit along with the 5th.
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I’m happy as a economic conservative, but legally it is hard to justify the decision.
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honestly didn’t realize there were conservatives on this blog.
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Didn’t Amy Coney Barrett refuse to stop this plan yesterday? I didn’t know that a Circuit Court could override that.
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They were separate cases
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This did not happen and this cannot happen.
Jurisdiction matters. A SCOTUS justice acting on emergency appeal in her circuit (7th) has no binding legal effect on suits file in another circuit (8th).
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Yes, Gavi is correct – Barrett denied the emergency appeal in a different case arising out of Indiana. This case is from a bunch of states suing in the Eighth Circuit to stop the loan forgiveness plan, and with the Eighth Circuit’s 10-1 Republican majority, I can’t say I’m surprised they ruled the way they did. I did have my bets on the Fifth Circuit stopping it first, but I don’t think the case out of Texas has gotten to that point yet.
Let’s be honest – there was no way Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan was going to get through this Fed Soc-infested judiciary. I was actually hoping Barrett would grant the appeal on the CA7 case because at least the Dems could use it in their campaigns as another example of SCOTUS run amok. Now SCOTUS will probably kill the program (or just decline to grant cert on an appeal of a 5th/8th Circuit decision killing it) after the midterms, when any backlash to its decision would be too late to help the Democrats.
I would say that this 8th Circuit decision itself is a good opportunity for Biden/Dems to motivate their base/rail against the courts, but given their abysmal response to Dobbs, I doubt they have the nerve. When will the Dems wake up and start attacking this illegitimate SCOTUS (and lower court Fed Soc judges) for the hacks that they are?
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Surprisingly, the 8th circuit panel that is hearing the case has 2 Dem appointees (Jane Kelly & district judge Katherine Menendez). Notably, the 8th circuit has not heard on the merits, and will probably uphold Biden’s plan on the merits (although they could then be reversed en banc, which is particularly likely if Loken ends up dissenting on the merits).
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@Ryan Joshi
That is not the student loan forgiveness case. The panel with Menendez, and Loken and Kelly is for State of Missouri v. Biden (IMPORTANT=>) No. 21-3013 *NOT* No. 22-3179.
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Thanks for the correction.
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Right wing district judge and federalist society hack john sinatra based in new york just blocked again the new york gun law which majority of new yorkers agree with. Can anyone explain to me why schumer and gillibrand allowed so many federalist society hacks to be on district courts? why didn’t they use their blue slips? same for in california, its a disgrace that you have several trump appointed federalist society hacks on district courts in blue states. can anyone explain why that is?
Biden has not been able to appoint liberal judges on red states district courts where gop senators can block their nominations, ron johnson blocked pocan a moderate nominee.
I just don’t get why democrats are so unserious about judges, there is no justification for allowing a single nominee belonging to the federalist society to be on the district court in a blue state to continue their hack agendas and block laws their liberal constituents support.
Why aren’t the texas senators or florida senators acquiescing to the same demands? No ACLU lawyers have been appointed by biden to the numerous vacancies on district courts in their states. Why did schumer, harris and feinstein allow these hacks to pile up on district benches?
I bring this up because these right wing federalist society hack judges are dangerous anywhere regardless of the circuit makeup, in my view its disqualifying for a blue state senator to acqueise to such nonsense.
Can you imagine mcconell agreeing to allow an aclu immigrants lawyer on kentucky district court bench? The idea alone is ludicrous. So why was trump allowed to appoint dozens of these hacks in blue states?
Belonging to the federalist society on its own is a dis qualifier for any nominee to a blue state distrcitcourtship.
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They were approved as part of packages of nominees. Progressive judges like Jill Otake of Hawaii, Nicholas Ranjan of Western Pennsylvania, John Milton Young of Eastern Pennsylvania, Mary McElroy of Rhode Island, Lewis Limon of Southern New York, Stephanie Davis of Eastern Michigan, and Mary Rowland of Northern Illinois were nominated by Trump as parts of packages. Trump was reluctant to nominate them all.
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Then none of those deals should have been made. While Republicans treat Democrats like nothing but trash, Democrats treat Republicans like their significant other.
It is not worth letting a far right wacko(s) on the court just to get a very small amount of ours on. The far right Federalist Society judge in this case, Frank Sinatra, will be the next Chief Judge of his District Court. Disgusting that any Democrat would play an active role in letting that happening.
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Testing
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This is the one-sided dealings some of the older folks/boomers on here would love to see throughout. The Republican nominee gets confirmed unanimously, while Rachel Wainer Apter, held up for over a year, only gets one GOP vote.
Awful.
If only Phil Murphy or any future Democratic governor would ignore that nonsense, non-statutory tradition, and a Dem senate majority to see the nominees through. But these are all Dems we’re talking about, so expect that third and last vacancy on the court to stay unfilled for years to come. Sad:
https://newjerseyglobe.com/judiciary/senate-confirms-wainer-apter-fasciale-bringing-n-j-supreme-court-to-near-full-strength/
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I’m not a “boomer” whatsoever and think that all states should adopt these types of traditions.
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Good luck getting Florida or Texas to do that. I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea if we lived in a perfect world, but with the GOP stacking its state courts with Fed Soc hacks, it is the height of stupidity for Dems to be tying one hand behind their backs with these outdated “norms.” It’s the same thing with gerrymandering – until Dems fight back against the GOP so that there’s not a single Republican representative in CA/NY/IL, what incentive do Republicans have to come to an agreement that nobody gerrymanders/stacks their state supreme courts? Anyone arguing for anything less is either blind or just a shill for the GOP.
For all the opposition to Wainer Apter, you would’ve thought she was the Scalia of the left – she literally was part of the ACLU for less than a year. I would say that I hope she replaces Greenaway on CA3, but that would require the Dems to hold the Senate and I’m getting less optimistic by the day about that…still hoping for a miracle though.
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I totally get what you are saying, and that is why my hope of having completely balanced state courts will never be totally realized. Way too many FedSoc judges see their position as a way to make rulings that perfectly line up with the GOP position.
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Well he is a GOP shill. His role model is James Ho. He is part of a group that has wished death upon our Democratic senate candidate in PA and abandoned the one in WI because Bernie Sanders endorsed him. He has admitted on this site that he is a conservative. If Republicans retain the senate he will be smiling. Women and lgbt people won’t be but he is fine with that.
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If he wanted to badly enough, Murphy could find some RINO and pair them with a progressive Democrat. In this case, the progressive Democrat gets few to no GOP votes and the RINO probably also gets GOP nay votes since the GOP would absolutely complain if this were to happen.
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I’d think that a certain percentage of the Democrats there wouldn’t go for violating the spirit of the norms in that way, but certainly Republicans wouldn’t care if they were in power.
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If Texas or Florida did this, the same thing would happen; Abbott and DeSantis would pick full-on MAGA Republicans and would also pick rightwing Democrats involved with the Federalist Society who never formally switched parties.
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I’m going off topic here and maybe this has already been mentioned. But in California, Gavin Newsom has nominated Patricia Guerrero to be Chief Justice of the state Supreme Court. I had expected that he would nominate either Godwin Liu or Leona Krueger.
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Yes, that has already been mentioned. I considered voting against keeping Guerrero (I’m a California voter) but ultimately decided to vote in favor of retaining her.
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@Ryan Joshi, how can Melendez sit on an 8th circuit panel if she’s a district judge/
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We discussed this (visiting judges) in the previous post. Katherine Menendez is indeed a district court judge sitting on this case on the 8th Circuit by designation. So she’s temporarily playing the role of a circuit court judge, and getting a pay bump while she’s visiting.
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How is the need for a visiting judge determined?
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The circuit’s chief judge decides. See here: 28 U.S. Code § 292
Also, that case @Ryan Joshi sited is not the student loan forgiveness case. The panel with Menendez, and Loken and Kelly is for State of Missouri v. Biden (IMPORTANT=>) No. 21-3013 *NOT* No. 22-3179.
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I’m pleasantly surprised that Menendez was the one who was chosen.
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That experience will certainly help her resume for if a MN seat opens up there.
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