(Reuters) - U.S. Circuit Judge Diane Wood, a liberal jurist on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who was on former President Barack Obama"s short-list for the U.S. Supreme Court, plans to step down from active service on the Chicago-based court. Wood, 71, notified the White House on Thursday that she plans to take senior status upon the confirmation of a successor, giving Democratic President Joe Biden a chance to fill a third vacancy on the influential appellate court. Former President Bill Clinton in 1995 nominated her to become the second woman to serve on the 7th Circuit, which hears cases from Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. Wood in July 2020 completed a nearly seven-year stint as its chief judge. "This will give me more flexibility in my activities, although for now I do plan to continue taking a full load at the court and to continue teaching at the University of Chicago Law School, as I have done ever since I"ve been on the court," she said in an email on Friday. Senior status is a form of semi-retirement for judges. Presidents may name new full-time judges to fill their seats. Wood is one of three Democratic appointees among the 7th Circuit"s 11 active judges. Biden"s first nominee to the court, Candace Jackson-Akiwumi, won Senate confirmation in June. Another vacancy opened up earlier this month when U.S. Circuit Judge David Hamilton, an Obama appointee, said he would also take senior status. The judiciary lists 19 appellate seats that Biden could fill. Seven nominees are awaiting Senate approval. Wood was considered a liberal intellectual counterweight to conservative 7th Circuit jurists including Judge Frank Easterbrook, who preceded her as chief, and former Judge Richard Posner, who retired in 2017. She authored the majority opinion when the full, en banc 7th Circuit in 2017 became the first circuit nationally to hold that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 forbids discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. The U.S. Supreme Court later agreed. During the Obama administration, the Democratic president met with her while considering successors for Justices David Souter and John Paul Stevens in 2009 and 2010. But Wood faced Republican opposition over her support of abortion rights, which she has backed in several opinions and dissents. Obama, who served on the University of Chicago Law School"s faculty with her, instead nominated Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.