Federal Judge Maryellen Noreika is suddenly in the spotlight. Today she refused to approve Hunter Biden’s plea agreement, as we have discussed in several previous posts. Liberals immediately denounced Judge Noreika as a Trump appointee. All of which raises the question: who is she?
A useful source of information is the form she filled out when she was nominated to the federal bench in late 2017. This is a standard questionnaire that is responded to by all federal judicial nominees. It covers her education, her experience, and potential conflicts of interest, among other things.
Noreika graduated from Lehigh University, got a masters degree in biology from Columbia, and her law degree, magna cum laude, from Pittsburgh University, where she was a member of the Law Review.
Her career in private practice was with the Morris, Nichols law firm in Wilmington, Delaware. Morris, Nichols is a good, medium-sized firm. She did intellectual property litigation, mostly patent lawsuits. Her list of significant cases is relatively impressive. She tried a good number of cases by today’s standards, some of which involved significant patent issues. Prior to becoming a judge, she had no experience with criminal law.
Delaware is a small state, but because so many companies are incorporated there, its federal district court is an important venue and a good one for an ambitious litigator. Years ago, I had a very substantial case venued in that court, as do many lawyers from around the country. I infer from Noreika’s form that she is smart and a capable lawyer.
With regard to conflicts of interest, Noreika disclosed that her brother, Keith Noreika, was then the Acting Comptroller of the Currency. Keith Noreika is a very accomplished man, a graduate of Wharton and Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Law Review, an adjunct faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania and University of Virginia law schools, and a partner in Simpson, Thatcher, a substantial Wall Street law firm. Perhaps most significantly, he was a member of the incoming Trump administration’s transition team at the Treasury Department. He is a recognized expert on banking and bank regulation, and a Republican.
Wikipedia thinks that Maryellen Noreika is a Democrat, and that could be true, although I haven’t seen an explanation for that characterization. In any event, she was vetted and approved by Delaware’s two Democratic senators, a traditional part of the process of becoming a district court judge.
My impression is that Judge Noreika is smart and confident. Unlike some judges these days, she didn’t get her first glimpse of a courtroom from the bench, and she is accustomed to high-stakes litigation. All of which suggests that she is a good person to preside over the Hunter Biden prosecution. Until now, that investigation and prosecution–real or faux–has taken place among Washington insiders, behind closed doors. No one seriously doubts that Hunter has gotten kid gloves treatment from the prosecutors. As events now begin to unroll within public view, my sense is that Maryellen Noreika is well above the average we might expect as a presiding judge.
