Rachelle "Shelly" Lynne Deckert Dick (born 1960) is the
Chief United States district judge of the
. She is the first female judge to serve in the Middle District.
Biography
Dick was born Rachelle Lynne Deckert in 1960 in
El Paso
El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the s ...
,
Texas
Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...
. She received her
Bachelor of Business Administration
Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is a bachelor's degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of business administration and usually including advanced ...
degree, cum laude, from the
University of Texas
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
in 1981 and her
Juris Doctor from
Louisiana State University Paul M. Herbert Law Center in 1988. From 1988 to 1994, she worked at the law firm of Gary, Field, Landry and Dornier. From 1994 to 2013, she was a partner at the law firm of Forrester, Dick & Clark. During her private career, she litigated a wide variety of cases in both state and federal courts. From 2008 to 2013, she also served as an Ad Hoc Hearing Officer appointed by the Louisiana Workforce Commission to hear worker's compensation cases and other administrative matters.
Federal judicial service
On April 25, 2012, President
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
nominated Dick to serve as a United States district judge for the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana, to the seat vacated by Judge
Ralph E. Tyson.
[ Senator ]David Vitter
David Bruce Vitter (born May 3, 1961) is an American lobbyist, lawyer, and politician who served as United States Senator for Louisiana from 2005 to 2017.
A Republican, Vitter served in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1992 to 1999. ...
initially refused to return his blue slip
Blue slip or blue-slipping refers to two distinct legislative procedures in the United States Congress.
In the House of Representatives, it is the rejection slip given to tax and spending bills sent to it by the Senate that did not originate in ...
, effectively blocking her nomination. On November 28, 2012, Senator Vitter announced that he would return his "blue slip", permitting confirmation proceedings to proceed on Dick's nomination. She received a hearing on December 12, 2012. On January 2, 2013, her nomination was returned to the President, due to the sine die adjournment of the Senate. On January 3, 2013, she was renominated to the same office. Her nomination was reported by the Senate Judiciary Committee
The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations ...
on February 28, 2013, by voice vote.voice vote
In parliamentary procedure, a voice vote (from the Latin ''viva voce'', meaning "live voice") or acclamation is a voting method in deliberative assemblies (such as legislatures) in which a group vote is taken on a topic or motion by responding vo ...
on May 9, 2013. She received her commission on May 10, 2013. She became chief judge on July 18, 2018.
See also
* List of first women lawyers and judges in Louisiana
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dick, Shelly Deckert
1960 births
Living people
Judges of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana
Louisiana lawyers
Louisiana State University Law Center alumni
Lawyers from El Paso, Texas
United States district court judges appointed by Barack Obama
21st-century American judges
University of Texas alumni
21st-century American women judges