Scott Matheson, Jr.

Scott Milne Matheson Jr. (born Scott Milne Matheson III; July 15, 1953) is an American lawyer and jurist serving since 2010 as a U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.

A native of Salt Lake City, Matheson graduated from Stanford University, attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and received his Juris Doctor degree from the Yale Law School. After working in private practice for several years, Matheson became a law professor at the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, where he served as dean from 1998 to 2006. Matheson was the United States attorney for the District of Utah from 1993 to 1997.

Early life and education Matheson was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. His father, Scott M. Matheson, served as Governor of Utah from 1977 to 1985, his mother, Norma Matheson, served as First Lady of Utah, and his brother, Jim Matheson, served as a United States representative from Utah from 2001 to 2015.

Matheson earned a Bachelors of Arts degree with distinction from Stanford University in 1975, where he won the Anna Laura Myers Prize for an outstanding undergraduate economics thesis. He then went to Magdalen College, Oxford, as a Rhodes Scholar, receiving a BA (promoted to a Master of Arts per tradition) in modern history in 1977.

Professional career After graduating from law school, Matheson first worked as his father's campaign manager for the 1980 Utah gubernatorial election. In 1981, he entered private practice as an associate at the Washington, D.C. litigation firm Williams & Connolly.

However, sources such as the Fox News Channel and conservative magazine The Weekly Standard alleged that Obama hoped to influence Matheson's brother, Rep. Jim Matheson, to vote for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. According to The Salt Lake Tribune, "Rep. Jim Matheson called the claim simply absurd, as did the White House, Senator Orrin Hatch and pretty much everyone who knows the Mathesons."

Hatch, an establishment conservative Republican from Utah, supported Matheson and helped shepherd the nomination through the Senate. On December 22, 2010, the U.S. Senate confirmed the nomination. Matheson received his judicial commission on December 27, 2010.