Third Circuit Republican Appointee Jordan Plans to Retire
Judge Kent Jordan will retire from the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in January 2025, according to the federal judiciary.
Jordan, an appointee of President George W. Bush, has served on the Third Circuit since 2006 and was previously a judge on the federal trial court in Delaware.
His intended retirement date posted on the federal courts website is Jan. 15, 2025, five days before the presidential inauguration, which gives President Joe Biden an opportunity to flip the seat to a Democratic appointee.
There is already a pending vacancy on the Third Circuit as the nomination of Adeel Mangi languishes in the Senate. Several Senate Democrats have said they have concerns about Mangi, who would be the first Muslim to serve on a federal appeals court.
Jordan was born and raised at the US Military Academy at West Point, New York, where his father was the youngest professor in the school’s modern history, according to an article posted by the American Inns of Court at the time he became its president.
He described serving as a missionary in Japan for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a “formative and important” part of his life. He then earned degrees from Brigham Young University and Georgetown University’s law school before clerking on the US District Court for the District of Delaware, where he would later serve as a judge for four years.
Jordan’s legal career included time as a federal prosecutor, partner at a Wilmington, Delaware law firm where he focused on patent litigation, and as general counsel for the Corporation Service Company, the White House said at the time of his nomination.
Biden, then serving in the Senate, called Jordan a “really fine Delawarean,” at his 2006 confirmation hearing to the circuit seat and noted he had earlier introduced him at his 2002 hearing for the federal trial court.