Adeel Mangi is top candidate for Third Circuit Court of Appeals seat

Adeel A. Mangi has emerged as the leading candidate to fill an open New Jersey seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and would become the first Muslim to serve as a federal appellate court judge, the New Jersey Globe has confirmed.

The White House is in the final stages of vetting and is preparing to nominate Mangi, partner at Patterson Belknap, a large Manhattan-based firm.

The 46-year-old Pakistan-born Mangi is slated to replace Judge Joseph Greenaway, Jr., who retired in June.

He would become the fourth appellate court judge named by President Joe Biden for the Third Circuit and the first from New Jersey.  The Third Circuit, which includes New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, currently has seven judges nominated by Republicans George W. Bush and Donald Trump, and six picked by Barack Obama and Biden.

The process to fill an open seat on the Third Circuit has been underway since Greenway announced his retirement plans in February.

Several potential candidates were interviewed by judicial advisory boards of the state’s two U.S. Senators, led by Henry Amoroso for Cory Booker and James Checchi for Bob Menendez.    The White House also put names into the mix.

Mangi became one of five finalists for the seat on a list that included U.S. Magistrate Judge Jose Almonte, U.S. District Court Judge Michael Farbiarz, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Vikas Khanna, and New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Fabiana Pierre-Louis.

The White House appeared intensely interested in Pierre-Louis, the first Black woman to serve on the state Supreme Court, but ultimately, Pierre-Louis withdrew her name, preferring to remain in the job she’s held since 2020.

New Jersey Solicitor General Jeremy Feigenbaum also had support for the post, but the White House believed the 35-year-old former law clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was too young for an appellate court seat.

Late in the process, Menendez sought to add Lisa Perez Friscia, Superior Court Appellate judge, to the mix, but she did not make the finalist list.

Mangi has not been politically active – he made token contributions to the presidential campaigns of Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton – but appears to have the backing of Booker and Menendez.

Earlier this year, Mangi received some consideration from Gov. Phil Murphy for a seat on the New Jersey Supreme Court but was not a finalist.  Murphy had wanted to name a Hispanic to the top court.

In 2016, Mangi represented the Islamic Society of Basking Ridge in a religious freedom discrimination case after Bernards Township officials refused to permit the construction of a mosque.

The case against Bernards was eventually settled for $3.25 million.   Legal fees awarded to Mangi were donated to several charities, including a scholarship fund for Muslim law students.

After Bayonne rejected an application to build a mosque in that city, Mangi sued.  He won a $400,000 settlement and a permit.

According to his law firm website, Mangi won a $2 billion jury verdict last year in Virginia in a case involving the theft of software trade secrets.

Three years ago, Mangi represented the family of a mentally ill Black inmate in a New York prison who had allegedly been killed by white correctional officers who had beaten him in retaliation for his behavior.  As a result, Mangi got the state of New York to install cameras and microphones at the prison.

Mangi attended the University of Oxford in England before graduating from Harvard Law School in 2000.  He served on the board of the Muslim Bar Association of New York, the Muslims for Progressive Values, and the Legal Aid Society of New York.   He had advocated for members of the Muslim LGBTQ+ community.

He lives in North Jersey with his wife and two children.

The 14-member U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has four seats for New Jersey, eight for Pennsylvania, and two for Delaware.   Trump had made four nominations during his term;  three of his picks had replaced judges named by Democratic presidents.  One of Biden’s three nominations so far replaced an appointee of a Republican president.

Greenaway had spent 27 years on the federal bench.  President Bill Clinton named him to the District Court in 1996, and Obama elevated him to the  Third Circuit in 2010.