From a press release issued this morning by the Trump administration comes news of a pair of federal judicial appointments – Terry Doughty in the northern part of the state (assumedly Monroe) and Michael Juneau in Lafayette…

If confirmed, Terry A. Doughty of Louisiana will serve as a District Judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.  Judge Terry Doughty serves as a District Judge for the Fifth Judicial District Court, where he presides over criminal, civil, and juvenile cases arising in the parishes of Franklin, Richland, and West Carroll, and where he has served since assuming office on January 1, 2009. In 2015, Judge Doughty was re-elected to the court and received the Citizen Lawyer Award from the Louisiana State Bar Association. From 1985 through 2008, Judge Doughty served as an assistant district attorney for the Fifth Judicial District. During that period, he prosecuted misdemeanor and felony cases, and litigated post-conviction proceedings and juvenile cases. Prior to joining the district attorney’s office, Judge Doughty practiced at the Rayville, Louisiana, firm of Cotton, Bolton, Hoychick & Doughty. Judge Doughty received his B.S., in finance, from Louisiana Tech University and his J.D. from the Louisiana State University Law School.

If confirmed, Michael J. Juneau of Louisiana will serve as a District Judge on the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana.  Mr. Juneau is a founding member and shareholder of Juneau David, APLC, a Lafayette-based litigation firm that handles a broad range of civil litigation in state and Federal courts across Louisiana. Mr. Juneau also has extensive experience administering mass tort settlements as a court-appointed neutral in significant mass tort and nationwide class action matters. In this capacity, he has managed some of the largest multidistrict litigation in the United States, including In Re: Vioxx Products Liability Litigation and In Re: Oil Spill by the Rig “Deepwater Horizon” in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010. Mr. Juneau received his B.S., magna cum laude, from Louisiana State University and his J.D., cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he was selected as the best oralist in the Ames Moot Court Competition.

Doughty and Juneau are hopefully the beginning of a sizable wave of appointments in Louisiana. There are a number of federal judgeships unfilled at the moment, as well as all three U.S. Attorney positions – for the Western, Middle and Eastern districts of the state. The latter positions, particularly given the burgeoning examples of public corruption at the local (and state) governmental levels, simply cannot be filled fast enough.