Pictured: Portrait of Senior District Judge D. Brock Hornby by artist Kyle Keith
On Friday, August 12, 2016, the Bench and Bar of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine presented the portrait of ALI Council member Senior District Judge D. Brock Hornby to the Court in a special reception at the U.S. Custom House on Fore Street in Portland. The event was hosted by Judge Hornby’s current and former law clerks. The portrait is a gift to the Court from the federal bar of this Court. Brief remarks were made by Chief Judge Nancy Torresen, Senior District Judge George Z. Singal and Zachary Hornby, son of Judge Hornby.
The portrait was painted by renowned portrait artist Kyle Keith, of Jacksonville, Florida. It will be the first portrait to be displayed in Courtroom Two of the Edward T. Gignoux U.S. Courthouse, which Judge Hornby helped to design and where he has presided since its construction. The portrait shows him standing by the Courtroom’s rear windows holding the Pattern Jury Instructions, a work for which he was responsible and that is used throughout the First Circuit.
Born in Brandon, Manitoba, Canada, Judge Hornby obtained his B.A. at the University of Western Ontario and his J.D. from Harvard University, where he was an officer of the Harvard Law Review. He then clerked for Judge John Minor Wisdom of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans and taught at the University of Virginia Law School, where he was then the youngest professor to be awarded tenure. He became a naturalized United States citizen in Abingdon, Virginia.
During his law practice years, 1974 to 1982, he was a partner at Perkins, Thompson, Hinckley & Keddy. He also served as President of the Portland Society of Art, which was then overseeing both the Portland Museum of Art and the Portland School of Art, now MECA. While he was President, the School of Art obtained NEASC accreditation and the Museum, with Charles Shipman Payson’s support, acquired the real estate facing Congress Square and engaged architect Henry N. Cobb to design its new building.
In 1982, Judge Hornby was appointed as the District of Maine’s first full-time magistrate judge. In 1988 he became an Associate Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, and then in 1990, President George H.W. Bush nominated him to be a United States District Judge for the District of Maine. He served as chief judge from 1996 to 2003, and took senior status in 2010.
Read the full press release from the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine.