Middle District of North Carolina / Appointed 2007 / Active

William Lindsay Osteen Jr.

Judge, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina

Appointed by President George W. Bush in 2007 and confirmed by the Senate 870, William Lindsay Osteen Jr. is a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. He earned a law degree from University of North Carolina School of Law in 1987. Rulings & record ↓ Sources ↓

Born
1960 · age 66
Appointed by
George W. Bush, 2007
Confirmed
87–0
Education
University of North Carolina 1983 · University of North Carolina Law 1987

Federal judicial service

YearCourtAppointed byVote
2007Middle District of North CarolinaG.W. Bush (R)87–0

Party letters show the appointing president’s party, not the judge’s own.

Confirmation vote

The senator-by-senator roll call for this vote hasn’t been ingested yet.

Education

Judicial Record

Caseload & case types

In our data, Osteen was assigned 3,922 district-court cases (2006–2026). Median time from filing to termination: 223 days across 3,569 closed cases.

Other civil matters33%
Prisoner & habeas30%
Civil rights8%
Contract5%
Personal-injury torts4%
Social Security4%
Other16%

Case assignment is from CourtListener’s PACER-derived docket records: a partial sample, not a complete caseload, reflecting the judge last assigned each case. How we count.

On appeal

Of 537 of Osteen’s decisions reviewed on the merits by the U.S. courts of appeals in our data, 482 were affirmed, 29 reversed or vacated, and 26 affirmed in part and reversed in part. This is a historical count of appellate outcomes for cases we could match, not a judgment of the judge, and not a complete record. How we count.

In our data, Osteen authored 2 published opinions for the court (2009). Most cited: NORTH CAROLINA GROWERS'ASS'N, INC. v. Solis (14 citations).

A selective record from published opinions in the CourtListener corpus, not every ruling; most unpublished district orders are not included. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge.

Recent & notable rulings

Showing the 2 most-cited of 2 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

Who appointed William Lindsay Osteen Jr.?
President George W. Bush appointed William Lindsay Osteen Jr. to the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina in 2007.
Was William Lindsay Osteen Jr. appointed by a Democrat or a Republican?
William Lindsay Osteen Jr. was appointed by President George W. Bush, a Republican. JudicialFinder records the appointing president's party, not a judge's own politics.
What was William Lindsay Osteen Jr.'s confirmation vote?
The Senate confirmed William Lindsay Osteen Jr. 87–0 on September 10, 2007.
Which court is William Lindsay Osteen Jr. on?
William Lindsay Osteen Jr. is a Judge on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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18 years on the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina. Data as of 2026-08-10. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).