(This story originally appeared onBenefits Pro's sister publication National Law Journal.)

Merrick Garland, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appealsfor the D.C. Circuit and a former U.S. Justice Department lawyerwho led the investigation of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, wasnominated Wednesday to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In the weeks leading up to the nomination, many observers sawGarland, 63, as a consensus pick for the president — a judge who,despite a long paper trail and tenure on the bench, has kept a lowpublic profile and isn’t known for staking out controversialpositions.

Speaking from the Rose Garden, President Barack Obama saidGarland was widely considered “one of America’s sharpest legalminds” and was known for his “deep and abiding passion forprotecting our most basic constitutional rights.”

“I chose a serious man and exemplary judge, Merrick Garland,”Obama said, flanked by Garland and Vice President Joe Biden.” Overmy seven years as president, in all my conversations with senatorsfrom both parties, in which I asked their views on qualifiedSupreme Court nominees — and this includes the previous two seatsthat I had to fill — the one name that has come up repeatedly, fromDemocrats and Republicans alike, is Merrick Garland.”

His name was mentioned twice before as a potential high courtnominee under Obama for vacancies that ultimately went to JusticesSonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan in 2009 and 2010, respectively.Garland is older, by more than a decade, than several other judgeswho were considered contenders for Scalia’s seat. Scalia died on Feb. 13 at age 79.

Read: What Scalia death means forHR

An Illinois native, Garland was confirmed to the D.C. Circuit in1997 with bipartisan support — he was widely praised for his workin Oklahoma City — and is considered a moderate on the bench with adeep prosecutorial résumé. The president chose Garland over severalother judges, including Sri Srinivasan of the D.C. Circuit and PaulWatford of the Ninth Circuit.

Garland, choking up as he talked about his family, his career asa prosecutor working with victims of crime and his time on thebench, on Wednesday said the nomination was “the greatest honor ofmy life,” other than his wife Lynne agreeing to marry him 28 yearsago. He added that it was a “great privilege” to be nominated byObama, a fellow Chicagoan.

“Fidelity to the constitution and the law has been thecornerstone of my professional life, and it is the hallmark of thekind of judge I have tried to be for the past 18 years,” Garlandsaid. “If the Senate sees fit to confirm me to the position towhich I’ve been nominated today, I promise to continue on thatcourse.”

Garland has largely avoided the spotlight since becoming chiefjudge more than three years ago. He rarely comments in the pressand makes few public speaking appearances. He stayed out of thelimelight as Republicans tried to block Obama in 2013 fromappointing new judges to the D.C. Circuit. His public-facinginitiatives have included holding arguments several times a year atD.C.-based law schools.

Garland’s confirmation is far from certain — and could be doomedfrom the start. Senate Republicans have vowed for weeks to refuse to holdhearings or vote on any high court nominee during this electionyear. Obama’s announcement insures that the high court,already a flashpoint in the presidential race,becomes an even greater point of contention.

“They tell you in Washington that if you want a friend get adog. Harry Truman said that. That is not true. Get a family,”Garland, who is married with twodaughters, said in 2013 at an event at GeorgetownUniversity Law Center. “This is a hard place to be. No matter howmuch honor you have, people will attack you one way or the other.And the principle solace that you get is from your family.”

Law professors, SupremeCourt advocates, former judges and Big Law attorneys have urged the Senate totake up the president’s nomination.

Unlike Srinivasan, Garland has never argued in the SupremeCourt. But he is connected in another way: as a top feeder judge tothe high court. Since joining the D.C. Circuit, Garland has sentmore than 40 of his clerks to work for justices across thespectrum, from Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. to Justice StephenBreyer. Garland himself clerked for Justice William Brennan in 1978and 1979.

Liberal groups see Garland’s reputation as a moderate as astrength and a weakness. In 1997, when he was nominated to the D.C.Circuit, and in 2010, when he was on the short list for the SupremeCourt nomination that ultimately went to Kagan, some liberalscomplained that Garland was too much a centrist.

But that also worked to his favor: He was considered less likelyto provoke strong opposition from Republicans.

Garland on campaign finance, firearms

The next appointment to the Supreme Court could give liberals a5-4 majority, at least temporarily. Observers say a liberalmajority on the court could tighten restrictions on firearms and,in the political arena, dial back the influence of money inelections.

Garland wasn’t on the three-judge panel that struck down theDistrict of Columbia’s handgun ban in March 2007. He was among fourD.C. Circuit judges that voted, unsuccessfully, for the full courtto rehear the case. The Supreme Court in 2008, in an opinionwritten by Scalia, upheld the D.C. Circuit decision.

Garland wrote theopinion in Wagner v. Federal ElectionCommission in July 2015 that upheld the ban on campaigncontributions by federal contractors.

“Because the concerns that spurred the original bar remain asimportant today as when the statute was enacted, and because thestatute is closely drawn to avoid unnecessary abridgment ofassociational freedoms, we reject the plaintiffs’ challenge,”Garland wrote.

Garland’s supporters point to his 2008 opinionin Parhat v. Gates as an example of his skill inworking with Republican-appointed colleagues to advance progressiveprinciples.

In Parhat, the unanimous panel — including twoRepublican appointees — reversed a determination by a CombatantStatus Review Tribunal that a detainee at the U.S. militaryfacility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was an “enemy combatant.”

“To affirm the Tribunal's determination under such circumstanceswould be to place a judicial imprimatur on an act of essentiallyunreviewable executive discretion,” Garland wrote.

Garland has ruled for and against the government in transparencycases. In 2011, he wrote the opinion upholding the publicrelease of information about cases in which law enforcement usedcellphone location data to track suspects. He was on a three-judgepanel in May 2013 that said that the U.S. government could not be forced torelease photos and video of Osama bin Laden from the raidwhen the terrorist leader was killed.

“It is undisputed that the government is withholding the imagesnot to shield wrongdoing or avoid embarrassment … but rather toprevent the killing of Americans and violence against Americaninterests,” the panel said in an unsigned ruling.

Rise to the bench

Garland, who grew up in Lincolnwood, Illinois, a northern suburbof Chicago, graduated from Harvard Law School in 1977. BesidesBrennan, Garland clerked for the late Judge Henry Friendly of theSecond Circuit, who is widely praised as one of the “greatest”judges in modern times for his influential opinions and the scoresof law clerks who went on to achieve success as lawyers and on thebench, including Roberts.

Garland has named Friendly and former federal appeals judgeWilliam Webster, who later led the FBI and the CIA, as two majorinfluences.

“The one thing that I really felt was a legacy that he left forthe clerks was that this idea that law is just politics by anothername is not true,” Garland said in 2012 about Friendly. “And I never,ever felt that he was reaching a result because — eitherpolitically in a small ‘p’ or ideologically or ‘p’ in a big ‘p’ —that it made any difference to him. He was trying to reach what hethought was the right results.”

Garland spent two years as a Justice Department lawyer before hejoined Arnold & Porter, where he made partner. From 1989 to1992 he served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, andthen rejoined Arnold & Porter for a year before returning tothe Justice Department in 1993 as deputy attorney general for theCriminal Division. The following year, he became principalassociate deputy attorney general.

In that capacity he supervised the Justice Department’sinvestigation into the bombing of the Oklahoma City FederalBuilding in 1995 and the prosecution of the so-called “unabomber,”Ted Kaczynski.

When he was up for the D.C. Circuit, his nomination was delayedamid a dispute over whether the D.C. Circuit needed more judges — along-standing point of contention between Republicans and Democratsthat would play out again over Obama’s nominees to the court duringGarland’s tenure as chief judge.

On the bench, Garland is an active questioner of the lawyers infront of him. He has often described a collegial court. One benefitof being the chief judge is that Garland gets to assign opinions inthe cases he hears on three-judge panels.

“I think the public at large has seen the last opinion everwritten by Judge Garland on energy law,” D.C. Circuit Judge ThomasGriffith said in 2013, shortly afterGarland became chief judge, drawing laughter from the audience.

Garland has said he hires clerks who are “willing to say no” tohim — ”in a nice way.” Garland writes his own opinions. He said hereads the briefs and the case record for “an unfiltered view ofwhat the litigants are arguing.”

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(This story originally appeared on Benefits Pro'sALM sister publication National Law Journal.)