[4] Chase was nominated by President Calvin Coolidge (a native Vermonter) on January 19, 1929, to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, to a new seat authorized by 45 Stat.

[1][5] Chase's nomination disappointed Learned Hand and other advocates for the promotion of Thomas D. Thacher from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York; Thacher went on to serve as Solicitor General of the United States.

He primarily worked out of his chambers in Brattleboro, Vermont, where he lived, and commuted to New York only when necessary, which meant that he never became part of the core of the court.

[1] Gerald Gunther, a Learned Hand biographer, described Chase as a modest man who "never claimed to be an intellectual or a penetrating student of the law... preferring his outings on the golf course to his struggles with arguments and judicial opinions," and yet had "integrity and competence" and was not a "political judge preoccupied with cronyism" as colleague Martin Thomas Manton was.

(Manton resigned in the midst of corruption allegations in 1939 and served time in prison for accepting bribes.

)[5] Chase was considered a conservative member of the Second Circuit bench and is remembered today primarily in connection with his colleagues, including Hand.