By Casey Sullivan

Dec 13 (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate on Thursday confirmed longtime Debevoise & Plimpton attorney Lorna Schofield and State Supreme Court Justice Frank Geraci to be U.S. district judges in New York.

Schofield, who has spent more than 20 years at Debevoise handling white collar criminal defense work, will become a U.S. district judge in the Southern District. Geraci, who has served as Monroe County Court judge since 1999 and was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2000, will fill a vacancy in the Western District.

Schofield, 56, was confirmed by a 91-0 vote and is the first Filipina-American to serve on the federal bench. Geraci, 61, was confirmed by a unanimous voice vote. He served on the Rochester City Court from 1992 to 1998.

The pair will be sworn in as U.S. district judges in the coming days.

With Schofield's confirmation, the number of Asian American federal judges has more than doubled since President Barack Obama took office in 2008, according to Carl Tobias, a law professor at Richmond School of Law. He said there were 11 at the time, and that Obama had since appointed 12 more.

There are 78 federal judge vacancies nationwide and 39 pending judicial nominees for current and future vacancies, according to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Schofield fills one of six empty district judge seats in the Southern District, replacing Judge Shira Ann Scheindlin, while Geraci fills the sole empty district fudge seat in the Western District, replacing Judge David Larimer.

Obama had nominated Schofield and Geraci for the judge positions in April and May, respectively.

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