U.S. Sen. Kay Hagan may help name two federal judges.

The first-term Democratic senator will likely give advice to President Obama, who may fill at least two of the four vacancies on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, reports former Domester David Ingram, now of the Legal Times.

She met with several possible nominees for the 4th Circuit a few weeks ago, but she does not appear to have moved quickly to set up an internal system for recommending anyone, says Burley Mitchell Jr., a former chief justice of the N.C. Supreme Court and a partner in the Raleigh office of Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice.

"She’s just gotten there," Mitchell says. "I don’t think that they've even worked out any of the mechanisms."

Hagan's office declined to comment on the process. Possible nominees include UNC-Chapel Hill law professor S. Elizabeth Gibson, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Rich Leonard and N.C. Appeals Court Judge Jim Wynn.

Others who are interested include U.S. District Court Judge James Beaty Jr.; private lawyers James Cooney III, Douglas Kingsbery and Robert Spearman; Southern Coalition for Social Justice director Anita Earls, N.C. Appeals Judge Martha Geer and N.C. Supreme Court Justice Patricia Timmons-Goodson.

A Dome reader sends along one more name for the Fourth Circuit.

Following on the logic of other would-be judges, the legal insider writes that S. Elizabeth Gibson of the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law may also be under consideration.

Gibson clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court and worked for a Washington, D.C., law firm before becoming a professor.

She was nominated under President Clinton as well.

Other names previously mentioned: James A. Beaty Jr., Charles Becton, Robert Spearman, Rich Leonard, Jim Wynn, Patricia Timmons-Goodson and Martha Geer.

Another name has come up for the Fourth Circuit.

After an item this morning, a Dome reader pointed to Robert W. Spearman as a potential appointment by Barack Obama to the U.S. Court of Appeals' Fourth Circuit.

A partner with Parker Poe Adams & Bernstein in Raleigh, Spearman once clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and has been active in Democratic politics.

Unlike the other names that have been mentioned, Spearman is not a sitting judge, so he was able to volunteer for Obama's North Carolina campaign. 

His name surfaced as a potential appointment in 1997, but nothing came of it.