Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on President Obama’s nomination of a Marquette lawyer—the Hon. James A. Wynn, Jr., L’79—to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Judge Wynn is a longtime member of the North Carolina Court of Appeals, and he has retained strong ties to Marquette Law School. In particular, he was our Hallows Judicial Fellow in 2002, delivering our Hallows Lecture (logically enough); received the All-University Alumni Merit Award in 2004; and spoke at the Law School’s commencement ceremony in 2007. I admire Judge Wynn very much, as I wrote in this letter earlier this week to Sen. Patrick Leahy, chair of the Senate committee. I had not expected that Sen. Leahy would quote from the letter in a statement associated with the hearing, although he elected to do so in the course of giving his own take on the pace of federal judicial nominations, past and present. In all events, on behalf of all his many friends in the Marquette community, I wish Judge Wynn much good fortune in the nomination process.