Attorney Henry M. Sias wants to serve as a Common Pleas Court judge in Philadelphia. If Gov. Tom Wolf gives him the nod, and the Pennsylvania Senate confirms the nomination, Sias would be the nation’s first transgender male judges.
The five vacancies on Philadelphia Common Pleas Court are due to one judge retiring, one judge leaving the bench as a result of misconduct and three judges being elected to higher judicial posts.
The Philadelphia Municipal Court also has a vacancy due to the removal of out lesbian Dawn A. Segal for misconduct.
J.J. Abbott, a spokesperson for Wolf, declined to specifically address Sias’ pending application. “The [nomination] process is ongoing,” Abbott said in a March 23 email. “At this point, applications are still being reviewed, but Gov. Wolf values diversity on the bench.” Sias’s application to fill a judicial vacancy has been pending with the governor’s office for about two months.
Sias, 41, was unsuccessful in his bid for a Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judgeship in the May 2017 primary election but made a strong showing.
Sias is a 2005 graduate of Yale Law School who served as a law clerk for several well-known judges, including Pennsylvania Supreme Court Judge Jane Cutler Greenspan. Between 2007-08, he was employed at the Center City law firm Blank Rome, specializing in the fields of white-collar criminal law, general commercial litigation, mass torts, and political asylum.
In August 2011, Sias cofounded Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity, a nonprofit legal-aid organization informally known as the Expungement Project. The project has performed thousands of free criminal expungements for low-income Philadelphians, including within the LGBT community.
In April 2017, after an extensive vetting process, Sias received a “recommended” rating from the Philadelphia Bar Association to serve as a Common Pleas or Municipal judge.
“The Philadelphia Bar Association’s Commission on Judicial Selection and Retention thoroughly investigates candidates for judicial office and promotes judicial candidates whom the Commission has recommended based on its investigations,” said Colin J. Beisel, co-chair of the Philadelphia Bar Association’s LGBT Rights Committee, in a March 26 email. “The Commission recognizes the importance of including diverse candidates, including LGBT candidates, among those whom the Commission recommends for judicial office. And the list of the Commission’s recommended candidates will be shared with Gov. Wolf.”
Sias currently works as a solo practitioner based in South Philadelphia. If Sias is nominated and confirmed, he would serve on an interim basis through 2019. If he wishes to continue serving, he’d have to run in the May 2019 Democratic primary election in Pennsylvania. If victorious in the primary and general elections, his term as a judge would be 10 years.
Sias declined to comment for this story, other than to confirm that he applied to the governor’s office to be nominated as a Common Pleas judge. n