The Middle District’s new Magistrate Judge, Patrick Auld, was invested yesterday in a ceremony at the federal courthouse in Greensboro.

Cameras are allowed in the courthouse on ceremonial occasions like this, so I’m able to share with you a couple of photographs of the ceremony. That’s Judge Auld in the photo on the left, and the four District Judges of the Middle District in the other (from left, Judge Tilley, Judge Osteen, Chief Judge Beatty, and Judge Schroeder, applauding Judge Auld).

Judge Auld attended Wake Forest University and then Yale Law School.  He clerked for Judge Woody Tilley of the Middle District, and then for Judge Phyllis Kravitch of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. He practiced in Atlanta after his clerkships, and then joined the U.S. Attorney’s office in the Middle District in 1998.  He has been Deputy Chief of the Criminal Division in this District since 2004.

Magistrate Judge Trevor Sharp, who introduced Judge Auld, noted the new Judge’s sense of humor and informed him that his jokes will now be much funnier, at least to the lawyers appearing before him. True to form when judicial humor is involved, there was robust laughter from the crowded courtroom at Judge Sharp’s remarks.

Judge Auld will be resident in Winston-Salem. He takes the seat held by Magistrate Judge Russell Eliason, who retired after more than thirty years as a Magistrate Judge.