WASHINGTON - Federal appeals court nominee Thomas Griffith received a lukewarm endorsement from the American Bar Association, though Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch remains committed to seeing Griffith confirmed.

“Sen. Hatch strongly supports the nomination of Mr. Griffith and will continue to work hard so that the Senate confirms him to the D.C. Circuit,” said Hatch's Judiciary Committee spokeswoman Margarita Tapia. “Mr. Griffith is superbly qualified for the post and deserves to be confirmed.”

At least five of the 14 members on the bar association's Committee on Federal Judiciary disagreed, saying that Griffith was unqualified to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.

Griffith, who served as Senate Legal Counsel during the impeachment trial of President Clinton, has been dogged by his failure to obtain a Utah law license when he moved to the state to become general counsel at Brigham Young University.

Before that, he had allowed his license to practice in Washington, D.C., to lapse, which he blamed on a clerical error.

The American Bar Association Committee on Federal Judiciary rates judicial candidates as “well qualified,” “qualified,” and “not qualified.” In Griffith's case, a narrow majority of the members - between eight and nine, although exact votes are secret - deemed him to be qualified to be a judge.

The ratings are required before the Senate will consider a judge's nomination, and Hatch had said that the rating was all that was holding up Griffith's consideration.

Griffith was nominated to the court on May 10, but he has not received a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, and time is running out before the Senate adjourns.

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told The Washington Post that he was surprised that Hatch planned to pursue a hearing for Griffith.

“This is a nominee who has been suspended from one legal jurisdiction and who apparently continues to this day to engage in the unauthorized practice of law in another,” Leahy told the newspaper.