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President Barack Obama nominated federal Magistrate Timothy Black on Thursday to become the next U.S. District Court judge in Cincinnati. He is Obama's first nominee for a judgeship in Cincinnati.

Black became the front-runner for the job in July when a bipartisan commission in Ohio selected him from a list of three finalists and recommended him to the president.

If the Senate confirms him, Black would become the eighth active judge on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio and the third based in Cincinnati.

Black, 55, of Cincinnati, would replace Judge Sandra Beckwith, who became a senior, or semi-retired, judge earlier this year. District judges serve for life and are paid $174,000 a year and preside over a wide range of cases, from class-action lawsuits to civil rights claims to federal drug trafficking cases.

Obama praised Black for his "evenhandedness, intellect and spirit of service" in a statement released Thursday by the White House.

Black could not be reached Thursday, but he said in July that he was "ready for the work."

Black spent 10 years as a Hamilton County Municipal Court judge before becoming a federal magistrate in 2004. As a magistrate, he has handled preliminary hearings, bail hearings, search warrants and, at times, trials for District Court judges.

He is a 1983 graduate of the Salmon P. Chase College of Law at Northern Kentucky University and received his undergraduate degree from Harvard University.

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