Federal Magistrate Judge Vera Scanlon appointed to second eight-year term

July 6, 2020 Rob Abruzzese

Magistrate Judge Vera Scanlon, left, was sworn in for her second term in the Eastern District by Chief Judge Roslynn Mauskopf during a ceremony on Wednesday in Brooklyn’s Walt Whitman Park. Photo courtesy of the Eastern District of New York

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U.S. Magistrate Judge Vera Scanlon was reappointed to a second eight-year term to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York during a socially distanced ceremony held outdoors near the courthouse on Wednesday, the Board of Judges announced.

Justice Scanlon, a Columbia University and Yale Law School graduate, is a former partner at Beldock Levine & Hoffman. She also served as a law clerk to Hon. Robert Katzmann, of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals; Hon. Frederic Block, from the EDNY; and Hon. Daniel Dominguez, U.S. District Court Judge of Puerto Rico.

Magistrate Judge Scanlon was initially appointed to her position in the Eastern District on Aug. 14, 2012.

Wednesday’s ceremony was presided over by Chief Judge Roslynn Mauskopf in Walt Whitman Park, just next to the federal courthouse in Brooklyn, while family and friends watched.

An adjunct professor at Brooklyn Law School, Magistrate Judge Scanlon is co-chair of the Civic Education Subcommittee of the Second Circuit’s Justice for All: Courts and the Community initiative, which works to increase the public’s understanding of the role of the court. She also sits on the NYC Bar Association’s Special Committee to Encourage Judicial Service.

Magistrate judges are appointed to federal courts to assist district court judges in their duties. They have eight-year term limits and are appointed by a majority vote of the federal district judges in their districts.

In assisting the district court judges, magistrates conduct preliminary proceedings in criminal cases including pretrial matters and evidentiary hearings on reference from a district judge, issue arrest and search warrants, and preside over trials and disposition of federal civil cases upon consent from litigants.