Skopil was born in Portland, Oregon, on June 3, 1919.[1] His parents, Otto Richard Skopil and Freda Martha Boetticher, were working-class German immigrants who lived in the Salem, Oregon, area.[2] Around age one, the family returned to Salem where Otto Jr. was raised.[2] In high school at North Salem High School, Otto played basketball and earned a full-ride scholarship to Willamette University in Salem.[2] At Willamette he served as class president his freshman year.[2] He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics in 1941.[1] Otto then dropped out of law school after two years to enlist in the United States Navy along with two classmates.[3] During World War II, he was a lieutenant in the Navy[1] in that service's supply division from 1942 to 1946.[1] He returned to university in 1945 and, in 1946, he graduated from Willamette University College of Law with a Bachelor of Laws and entered private legal practice in Salem where he remained until 1972.[1][2] The university created a special class to allow him and other veterans to start mid-term and resume where they had left off before the war.[3] While in private practice in 1967, he represented State Farm Insurance in a case that reached the United States Supreme Court.<refState Farm Fire & Cas. Co. v. Tashire, 386 U.S. 523 (1967)</ref>
US Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger appointed Skopil in 1979 as chairman to the National Magistrates Committee[2] which worked to expand the powers of federal magistrate judges.[2] Skopil was appointed due to his work at the federal district court in Oregon to expand the role of these lower level judges in the federal court system.[2] On the committee he worked with United States Attorney General Griffin Bell, which helped Skopil earn a nomination to the United States Court of Appeals, the last court before the Supreme Court of the United States.[3]
President Jimmy Carter nominated Skopil for a new seat created by 92 Stat. 1629 on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on June 14, 1979.[1] Skopil was confirmed on September 25, 1979, by the US Senate and received his commission the following day.[1] He is one of only a few federal judges to be nominated by US presidents from both the Republican and Democratic political parties.[2] Skopil became a senior judge for the court on June 30, 1986.[1]
Later life and family
From 1968 until 1974, he was on the board of trustees for Willamette and, in 1983, received an honorary doctorate there.[3] After assuming senior status on the court, Skopil continued to work on the bench.[2] In 1990, he was appointed to the Long Range Planning Committee of the federal court system by Chief Justice William Rehnquist.[2]
Both his son, Otto III, and his daughter, Shannon Skopil, were attorneys.[2] Otto and his wife Jan also had children named Casey and Molly Skopil. At the beginning of his time in private practice he partnered with his attorney uncle Ralph Skopil.[2] Otto had a younger brother named Robert.[2]
Skopil died on October 18, 2012, at the age of 93 at home in Portland.[4]
