Judge Randall Rader, a top patent court chief judge, announced he is stepping down from his leadership role on Friday, admitting he had raised questions about his judicial ethics by sending an email praising a lawyer who appears before the court, according to The Associated Press.
Rader will remain on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, but he will be replaced as chief judge by Judge Sharon Prost at the end of May, the court said on its website, the AP reported. Rader was appointed to the court by President George H.W. Bush in 1990 and became chief judge in 2010.
Rader said in an open letter posted on the court website that he had "engaged in conduct that crossed lines established for the purposes of maintaining a judicial process whose integrity must remain beyond question," according to the AP.
The Wall Street Journal first reported on an email Rader sent to Edward Reines praising his work on Thursday, the AP reported. Reines is a lawyer at law firm Weil Gotshal & Manges.
Although Rader did not mention Reines by name in Friday's letter, he wrote that he regretted sending an email that praised an attorney who had argued before the court, according to the AP.
The email "constituted a breach of the ethical obligations not to lend the prestige of the judicial office to advance the private interests of others," Rader wrote, the AP reported.
Rader said he would never compromise his impartiality as a judge but realizes that the email "may have led to the perception that the attorney in question was in a position to influence me in my performance of judicial duties," according to the AP.
The federal circuit, which has exclusive jurisdiction over patent appeals, has become increasingly important in recent years due to high-stakes litigation over technology patents, the AP reported.
