TOPEKA—The names of three persons were submitted to Gov. Kathleen Sebelius Tuesday as nominees for appointment to a vacancy on the state Court of Appeals that was created when Judge Carol A. Beier was elevated to the Supreme Court.
They include Nancy L. Caplinger, Topeka; Judge Patrick McAnany, Olathe; and David L. Snapp, Dodge City. Gov. Sebelius will have 60 days in which to make the appointment.
Caplinger is Appellate Coordinator in the U.S. Attorney's Office, a position she has held since 1999. Before that, she was an assistant U.S. Attorney since 1995. She began her legal career upon her graduation from the Washburn law school in 1985 by serving as Research Attorney to Supreme Court Justice Harold S. Herd and later as Law Clerk to U.S. District Judge Patrick Kelly, Wichita.
Upon leaving Judge Kelly's staff in 1989, she became an associate attorney in the Overland Park firm of Spencer, Fane, Britt & Browne, where she maintained a private practice until her appointment to the U.S. Attorney's office.
Judge McAnany is currently the chief judge of the one-county 10th Judicial District, which consists of Johnson County. Born in Sweetwater, Texas, he was graduated from Rockhurst College with a B.A. in Philosophy in 1965. He received a J.D. degree from the University of Missouri at Kansas City School of Law in 1968.
Judge McAnany practiced in the Kansas City firm of Miller & O'Laughlin from 1968 to 1969, when he left the firm to serve as assistant division attorney for the Mobil Oil Corporation in its Kansas City office. In 1973, he became a member of the McAnany, Van Cleave, & Phillips law firm in Kansas City, KS, and later was instrumental opening an office in Johnson County, where he practiced law until his appointment to the bench in 1995.
Snapp has been in private practice in Dodge City since 1981 when he joined Harry A. Waite, initially under the firm name of Minner & Waite, followed by Waite & Snapp. In 1995, he engaged in private practice with Michael A. Doll under the firm name of Waite, Snapp & Doll, where he currently practices.
He is a graduate of Kansas State University with a B.A. in philosphy, and of the Kansas University School of Law, where he received his law degree in 1980. Snapp has served as an assistant Ford County Attorney, a municipal court prosecutor for Dodge City, and as a district court judge pro term during his legal career.