Ashby Pate

Judicial Service

As one of four justices on the Republic’s highest court, Pate presided over several hundred civil and criminal cases as a trial judge and served as a panelist on over 40 civil and criminal appeals. Appointed to the Court at the age of 34 by President Johnson Toribiong, Pate was the youngest justice in the island nation’s history.

Solitary Confinement

In 2014, Pate’s order granting a writ of habeas corpus in In re Angelino, which condemned the solitary confinement system in Palau’s only correctional facility, garnered attention in the Asia-Pacific region and among noted international human rights advocates as "an impressive national court application of international human rights norms." Justice Pate's order resulted in significant structural improvements to the Koror Jail and the effective end to the practice of solitary confinement in the Republic.

Jury Trials in Palau

In 2009, while serving as Senior Court Counsel for the Supreme Court, Justice Pate also helped establish Palau's first jury trial system, contributing to its enabling legislation and authoring Palau's first jury trial rules and juror handbook.

Legal career

After law school, Pate served as a Law Clerk to the Honorable U. W. Clemon of the United States District Court, Northern District of Alabama, a prominent civil rights leader and Alabama's first African-American federal judge. In 2009, Pate served as Senior Court Counsel to the Honorable Chief Justice Arthur Ngiraklsong of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Palau, where he helped establish Palau's first jury trial system.

Prior to his judicial appointment, Pate practiced for several years at the firm of Lightfoot Franklin & White, in Birmingham, Alabama, with a focus on complex class actions and mass torts, international disputes, and NCAA compliance investigations. During his time in practice, he was voted a 2013 Top International Law Attorney by Birmingham Magazine’s Peer Reviewed Survey of over 2,000 Alabama Lawyers.

In 2016, Pate rejoined Lightfoot where he currently focuses his practice on international disputes, appellate work, white collar crime, and medical device litigation. In 2016. Pate was appointed as co-prosecutor in the widely-publicized judicial ethics trial of Alabama's "Ten Commandments" judge, Chief Justice Roy Moore. Pate delivered closing arguments in the trial, arguing that a January 6, 2016 Administrative Order issued by the Chief Justice, which ordered Alabama’s probate judges to refuse to issue same-sex marriage licenses, constituted defiance of the U.S. Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. In a unanimous verdict, the Alabama Court of the Judiciary suspended the Chief Justice from office for the remainder of his elected term, without pay.

In 2014, Pate was elected to theAmerican Law Institute, where he actively contributes to projects including The Restatement (Fourth) Foreign Relations Law of the United States, The Restatement (Third) The U.S. Law of International Commercial Arbitration, and The Restatement (Third) Torts: Liability for Economic Harm.

Publications & Lectures

Pate has published and lectured on a variety of legal issues.

In 2016, Pate delivered a series of lectures entitled Be The Light to numerous organizations across the country, including the American College of Trial Lawyers Spring Meeting in Maui, HI; the Ninth Circuit Law Clerk Orientation in San Francisco, CA, with fellow speaker Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy of the United States Supreme Court; the Alabama State Bar Annual Meeting. Other presentations and publications include:

—Be the Light, Presentation to the American College of Trial Lawyers, Spring Meeting (2016), Maui, HI.

—The Future of Harmonization: Soft Law Instruments and the Principled Advance of International Lawmaking, 13 Touro Int’l L. Rev. 2, 142 (2010) (author).

—The Big Wet Now: Observations for Young Internationalists, Presentation to the Dean Rusk Center for International Law and Policy, University of Georgia School of Law (2013) (lecture).

—The Clear Opener: How to avoid mucking up the most crucial part of discourse, Bryan A. Garner, The American Bar Association Journal (August 2014)(interviewed and cited by Mr. Garner on judicial order writing and Federal Judicial Center training).

—Jury Trial Rules for the Courts of the Republic of Palau, Promulgated by the Palau Supreme Court (April 28, 2010) (author).

—Constitutional Law—Public Use Clause—Use of Eminent Domain to Promote Economic Development Held Constitutional, 36 CUMB. L. REV. 2, 407 (2006) (author).

Education

Pate graduated summa cum laude from the University of Colorado Boulder with a B.A. in English in 2000. Pate graduated magna cum laude from Samford University's Cumberland School of Law, where he also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Law Review. Pate earned his LL.M. in International Commercial and Business Law in 2010 from the University of East Anglia where he graduated first in his class and was awarded the Sir Roy Goode Prize in international law.