Circuit shorts

Senate gives OK to Dow for federal court

The nomination of Chicago attorney Robert M. Dow Jr. as a judge of U.S. District Court for the Northern District was confirmed Nov. 13 by a unanimous 86-0 vote of the U.S. Senate. He succeeds Judge Charles P. Kocoras, whose July 2006 decision to take senior status created the vacancy.

A Joliet resident and partner in Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, where he has practiced since 1995, Dow was president of the Appellate Lawyers Association in 2005-06. He has been honored for pro bono work.

A 1993 cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School and former Rhodes Scholar, Dow is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He was a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and Judge Joel M. Flaum of the U.S. Court of Appeals.

Bound for Washington

Judge Mark R. Filip of U.S. District Court for the Northern District was selected Nov. 15 to become deputy attorney general under newly seated Attorney General Michael Mukasey. He awaits Senate confirmation.

A 1992 magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, Filip was an assistant U.S. attorney and a partner in Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom before his 2003 appointment to the federal bench.

Also awaiting Senate confirmation is Ronald Tenpas, former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, who is a candidate for assistant U.S. attorney general in the Environment and Natural Resources Division.

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Kendall Tate Chambers of Peoria, an assistant U.S. attorney in the Central District since 1984, is now national coordinator of Project Safe Neighborhoods, a Justice Department initiative to link local and federal law enforcement in an effort to reduce gun violence.

A graduate of the Southern Illinois University School of Law, Chambers headed Project Safe Neighborhoods in the Peoria area. He was a law clerk to then-Appellate Justice Richard Mills, now a federal judge.

Defender appointed

Rockford attorney Paul E. Gaziano took office Nov. 1 as branch manager of the Federal Defender Program in the Western Division of the Northern District.

A 1975 graduate of the William Mitchell College of Law in Minneapolis, Gaziano fills a vacancy that resulted from the transfer of Paul Flynn to the Federal Defender Program office in Chicago.

Recent appointment

James S. Cowlin of Cowlin & Cowlin, McHenry, has been named an associate judge of the 22nd Circuit.