TOPEKA—The Supreme Court Nominating Commission today submitted the names of three persons to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius for appointment to the Supreme Court to fill a vacancy on the court created by the June 6 retirement of Justice Bob Abbott.
Nominees include Judge Carol A. Beier, of the Kansas Court of Appeals, and Judges Steve A. Leben and Patrick D. McAnany, both of Johnson County District Court.
Judge Beier has served on the Court of Appeals since February 2000. A native of Kansas City, KS, she attended Benedictine College in Atchison and the University of Kansas, where she obtained a B.S. in Journalism in 1981. She also received her law degree from KU, graduating in 1985. She was an honor graduate of both programs. She spent 11 years before joining the Court of Appeals at Foulston & Siefkin, LLP, in Wichita, where her trial and appellate practice focused on commercial disputes and health care law.
Judge Beier also spent one year teaching at the University of Kansas School of Law. Prior to joining Foulston & Siefkin, Judge Beier practiced in Washington DC, first as a staff attorney at the National Women's Law Center through a fellowship program of the Georgetown Law Center, and then at Arent, Fox, Kintner, Plotkin & Kahn.
Judge Leben has served as a Johnson County District Court judge since September 1993. From 1993 until recently, he was a member of the Civil Department and handled both civil and domestic relations matters. Recently, he has taken over a docket that includes both civil and criminal cases.
Born in Eureka, Judge Leben received both his undergraduate and his law degree from the University of Kansas, where he received a B.S. with distinction in 1978, and a J.D. with honors in 1982. Upon graduation from law school, Judge Leben joined the firm of Stinson, Mag & Fizzell, beginning in the Kansas City, MO, office in 1982 and moving to the firm's Overland Park office when it opened in 1984. He left the firm in 1988 to become a sole practitioner, where he concentrated on commercial litigation, personal injury, worker's compensation cases, and administrative proceedings until his appointment to the bench in 1993.
Judge McAnany is currently the chief judge of the one-county 10th Judicial District, which consists of Johnson County. Born in Streetwater, Texas, he was graduated from Rockhurst College with a B.A. in Philosophy in 1965. He received a J.D. degree from the University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Law in 1968.
Judge McAnany practiced in the Kansas City firm of Miller & O'Laughlin from 1968 to 1969, when he left the firm to serve as assistant division attorney for the Mobile Oil Corporation in its Kansas City office. In 1973, he became a member of the McAnany, Van Cleave, & Phillips law firm in Kansas City, KS, and later was instrumental opening an office in Johnson County, where he practiced law until his appointment to the bench in 1995.
During his years on the District Court, Judge McAnany served as a judge on the juvenile docket and then as a judge on the civil docket, where he presently presides. He has been chief judge since 2000.