Robert S. Raymar (born September 20, 1947) is an American lawyer, a former New Jersey state official and a former federal judicial nominee to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
Raymar earned a bachelor's degree in 1969 from Princeton University and a law degree in 1972 from Yale Law School, where he was a classmate of both future President Bill Clinton and future Sen. Hillary Clinton. Raymar had edited the Yale Law Journal while in law school.
After graduating law school, Raymar worked as a law clerk for Judge Leonard I. Garth from 1972 until 1974, both before and after President Nixon elevated Garth from the U.S. District Court to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 1973. From 1974 until 1975, Raymar worked as Assistant Legal Counsel to New Jersey Gov. Brendan Byrne. He subsequently was Deputy Attorney General for the state of New Jersey. Raymar became a partner at his current Newark, New Jersey law firm in 1979.
According to a Newark Star-Ledger article published on June 6, 1998, Raymar coordinated a $2 million fundraising effort for Clinton by Yale alumni in 1992. In 1996, Raymar was one of six finance co-chairs for Clinton's campaign in New Jersey.
On June 5, 1998, President Clinton nominated Raymar to a vacancy on the Third Circuit that was created by the retirement of Judge H. Lee Sarokin. With the Senate under Republican control for the balance of Clinton's presidency and with Republicans loudly objecting to many of Clinton's judicial nominees, Raymar's nomination languished. The Republican-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee declined to hold a hearing for Raymar, and the Senate adjourned at the end of 1998 without having acted on Raymar's nomination.
Raymar had expected to be renominated to the seat in 1999. "Basically the job of a nominee is to wait, as quietly as possible, until the Senate Judiciary Committee opens a slot on its docket," Raymar told the Philadelphia Inquirer in an article that was published on October 26, 1998. "After all, the Senate Judiciary Committee is doing a lot of other things."