David Hale (Reed Weitkamp Schell & Vice PLLC)

The field appears to be narrowing for candidates for U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky.

David Hale of Reed Weitkamp Schell & Vice PLLC and Patrick Bouldin, an attorney in the Office of the Federal Defender for the Western District of Kentucky, are considered to be finalists, according to attorneys familiar with the recommendation process.

Hale (Vanderbilt University, University of Kentucky College of Law) has worked at Reed Weitkamp since 1999.  Before joining RWSV, Hale was a prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Western District of Kentucky. Bouldin attended the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville School of Law.

The people familiar with the process said several others were also under consideration for the post at one time. They include:

• Benham Sims, a former judge in Jefferson, Ky., District Court
• Fred Cowan, a former state attorney general, a former member of the state House and currently a circuit court judge
• Tom McDonald, a retired judge from the Jefferson Circuit Court
• Marc S. Murphy, an attorney in Louisville

While U.S. senators traditionally make recommendations to the president for their states’ U.S. Attorney posts, both senators from Kentucky — Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning — are Republicans. As a result, the two lone Democrats in the delegation, Reps. Ben Chandler and John Yarmuth, are left to do the nominating. Spokespeople for Chandler and Yarmuth did not return phone calls seeking comment.

“I don’t know that they agree between themselves who should do the recommending,” Scott C. Cox, a Republican lawyer in Kentucky who served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney  from 1987 to 1994, said in an interview.