By SUZANNE DOWNING
July 7, 2026 – Just two attorneys have applied for an opening on the Juneau District Court, a relatively small applicant pool for a judicial vacancy that will now move to the next stage of Alaska’s merit-selection process.
The opening comes as Judge Kirsten L. Swanson prepares to retire from the Juneau District Court.
According to the Alaska Judicial Council, the two applicants are Kevin Andrew Higgins, an assistant attorney general with the Alaska Department of Law in Juneau, and Margaret McWilliams, deputy director of the Office of Public Advocacy in Juneau.
Higgins has been an Alaska resident for 19 years and has practiced law for 19 years. He graduated from Lewis & Clark College Northwestern School of Law in 2007.
McWilliams has been an Alaska resident for approximately 18½ years and has practiced law for 26½ years. She graduated from Harvard Law School in 1999.
The Alaska Judicial Council’s seven-member panel, consisting of the chief justice, three attorneys from the Alaska Bar Association, and three public members, will evaluate the applicants through background investigations, surveys of Alaska Bar members, and personal interviews.
Then the council is scheduled to meet in Juneau during the week of Nov. 9, 2026, to interview the candidates and conduct a public hearing. After completing its review, the council is required to nominate at least two qualified applicants for the vacancy and forward those names to Gov. Mike Dunleavy, who will have 45 days to appoint one of the nominees. Dunleavy will leave office in early December.
The council is encouraging members of the public to submit comments regarding the qualifications of either applicant during the evaluation process.
Meanwhile, the Alaska Judicial Council announced that it is postponing consideration of a separate vacancy on the Kotzebue Superior Court after receiving fewer than the minimum number of required applications.
Only two applications were received by the filing deadline, preventing the council from moving forward under its selection process. The Kotzebue judgeship will be readvertised, and a new application period will be announced at a later date.
4 thoughts on “Only two applicants for Juneau judgeship; Kotzebue vacancy delayed due to lack of applicants”
The Democrats intentionally created an open Superior Court judgeship in Kotzebue, because the previous judge was an older, white guy who was politically incorrect.
The consequence what America gets for its passivity allowing school districts and families raising kids who stayed ignorant and illiterate or stupid….we are seeing less professionals qualified for speciality roles. Furthermore Alaska can’t count on recruiting judges from outside the state when Alaska is poorly developed state with not much offering prospective professional candidates who can have a better life for themselves (and lower expenses) or for their children on another state with a more attractive quality of life.
I’ll warn you all finding qualitied professionals as GenX and GenY/Millennials have aged will get fewer and fewer because GenZ and GenAlpha are not that motivated while they have their own work and communication and social struggles handicapping their generations incentive and development.
But it’s all okay. Humans are adaptive and will make it all work out.
The Alaska Judicial Council has already made up their liberal mind.
They don’t need public comments to make democracy appear it’s ruled by the people. The group ain’t going to read them anyway, you’ll just make the clerk have ti waste time on taxpayer money filing away the comment responses.
Judges should be voted by the people not elected by an elite member council.
Mr. Higgins should simply withdraw. Graduates of the Harvard Law School are automatically entitled to serve as judges in Alaska, and particularly in Juneau. Standing in the way of these automatic appointments is detrimental to a person’s career. An allegation of sexual harrassment against Mr. Higgins might be emerging soon.