(a) Bar members will be notified of the upcoming appointment and will be invited to participate in the appellate recommendation process. If an appellate recommendation process has been concluded within three months preceding the announcement of a new appellate vacancy, the Board may, at its discretion, forego conducting a separate appellate recommendation process and instead resubmit the previous list of highly qualified candidates to the Governor without notification to members.(b) Prior to commencement of the appellate recommendation process, the Appellate Selection Committee shall establish policies and criteria for conducting its review of candidates for each position, which may include, but is not limited to, review of the written applications; interviews of candidates; reports from judges or hearings officers; reports from members of the legal and general community; reports from references supplied by the candidate; and review of writing samples.(c) The Appellate Selection Committee will recommend to the Board at least three candidates it believes are highly qualified, based on the statutory requirements of the position, information obtained in its review of candidates, and based on at least the following criteria: integrity, legal knowledge and ability, professional experience, cultural competency, judicial temperament, diligence, health, financial responsibility, and public service. The Board will then determine the final list of highly qualified candidates to submit to the Governor. A "highly qualified" or "qualified" recommendation is intended to be objective. Failure to recommend a candidate in any particular selection process is not a finding that the person is unqualified.(d) In addition to submitting its list of "highly qualified" candidates, the Board will respond to any specific inquiry from the Governor as to whether certain other candidates in the pool meet a "qualified" standard.(e) Meetings of the Appellate Selection Committee are public meetings except for portions of meetings during which reference reports are presented and discussed. The term "reference reports," for purposes of this section, means information obtained by committee members and staff from persons listed as references by the candidates and information obtained by committee members and staff from other persons knowledgeable about candidates as part of the candidate review process. Discussion of reference reports by the committee and the Board will be in executive session pursuant to ORS 192.660(1)(f).Adopted effective 4/14/2023.