William Edwin Orr

William Edwin Orr (October 26, 1881 – October 7, 1965) was a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Born in Frisco, Utah Territory, Orr attended the University of Nevada, Reno and read law to enter the bar in 1912. He held a series of positions in Lincoln County, Nevada, first as a county clerk from 1906 to 1910, then county treasurer from 1911 to 1912, then district attorney from 1913 to 1918, and finally district judge from 1919 to 1939. He was a justice of the Nevada Supreme Court, appointed on March 2, 1939 to Benjamin Wilson Coleman's vacancy, elected November 1940 and served until 1945, including as chief justice from 1943 to 1945.^[1]

On September 10, 1945, Orr was nominated by President Harry S. Truman to a seat on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit vacated by Judge Curtis D. Wilbur. Orr was confirmed by the United States Senate on September 19, 1945, and received his commission on September 28, 1945. He assumed senior status on January 1, 1956, serving in that capacity until his death on October 7, 1965.^[1] That same year, a middle school in Las Vegas, Nevada opened bearing his name.^[2]

• William Edwin Orr at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a publication of the Federal Judicial Center.