Stephanos Bibas is a Professor of Law and Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and has other degrees from Columbia and Oxford. Following his graduation from law school, Professor Bibas clerked for Judge Patrick Higginbotham of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals and then for Justice Kennedy at the Supreme Court of the United States. After his clerkships, he served for two years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York for two years before joining the law faculty at the University of Iowa. He has been at Penn Law since 2006.
Professor Bibas was nominated in June to fill the seat that became available when Judge Rendell took senior status. Yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee took up the nomination and voted by 11-9, in a party-line vote, to send the nomination to the full Senate. Since Republicans control that chamber, approval of the nomination there appears likely, perhaps as early as next week.
The nomination has taken some twists and turns, and was even the subject of an advertising campaign, an unusual development for a judicial nomination, especially one for a court other than the Supreme Court of the United States. In his CA3 Blog, Matthew Stiegler has covered the history of the Bibas nomination comprehensively and in timely fashion since before that nomination was actually made, with word having gotten out early that Professor Bibas would be nominated for a Third Circuit seat. His posts are well worth reading for additional background.