Robert Raymar
Robert S. Raymar (born September 20, 1947) is an American lawyer, a former New Jersey state official and a former federal judicial nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Early life and education
Raymar earned a bachelor's degree in 1969 from Princeton University and a law degree in 1972 from Yale Law School, where he was a classmate of both future President Bill Clinton and future Sen. Hillary Clinton.[1] Raymar had edited the Yale Law Journal while in law school.[2]
Professional career
After graduating law school, Raymar worked as a law clerk for Judge Leonard I. Garth from 1972 until 1974, both before and after President Nixon elevated Garth from the U.S. District Court to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1973. From 1974 until 1975, Raymar worked as Assistant Legal Counsel to New Jersey Gov. Brendan Byrne. He subsequently was Deputy Attorney General for the state of New Jersey. Raymar became a partner at his current Newark, New Jersey law firm in 1979.[2]
Political involvement
According to a Newark Star-Ledger article published on June 6, 1998, Raymar coordinated a $2 million fundraising effort for Clinton by Yale alumni in 1992. In 1996, Raymar was one of six finance co-chairs for Clinton's campaign in New Jersey.
Nomination to the Third Circuit
On June 5, 1998, President Clinton nominated Raymar to a vacancy on the Third Circuit that was created by the retirement of Judge H. Lee Sarokin. With the Senate under Republican control for the balance of Clinton's presidency and with Republicans loudly objecting to many of Clinton's judicial nominees, Raymar's nomination languished. The Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee declined to hold a hearing for Raymar, and the Senate adjourned at the end of 1998 without having acted on Raymar's nomination.
Raymar had expected to be renominated to the seat in 1999. "Basically the job of a nominee is to wait, as quietly as possible, until the Senate Judiciary Committee opens a slot on its docket," Raymar told the Philadelphia Inquirer in an article that was published on October 26, 1998. "After all, the Senate Judiciary Committee is doing a lot of other things."
Raymar's nomination was not specifically held out by Republican senators as one to which they objected. However, another previous federal judicial nominee who had been a major Clinton fundraiser, Charles "Bud" Stack, had asked the president to withdraw his nomination in 1996 after significant Senate opposition.
Ultimately, Clinton chose not to renominate Raymar to the Third Circuit seat. He instead nominated Maryanne Trump Barry on June 17, 1999 to Sarokin's former seat, and she was unanimously confirmed less than three months later.[3]
Currently, Raymer practices in the areas of "complex commercial litigation, employment litigation, trademark, copyright and intellectual property rights matters, family law, administrative law, governmental affairs and regulations, environmental law, trust and estate litigation, and tort law."[4] He was selected as a "Super Lawyer" for the years 2005-2006 and 2011-2014.