I love the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Many years ago I flew to Houston for a clerkship interview with Judge Jerry Smith. I had never been to Houston before; indeed, I may not have ever been to Texas before. When I arrived, I remember worrying about the humidity and the heat. […]
Fall is here; we know this because the D.C. Circuit did not issue any opinions this week. Because I expected no opinions (this happens every fall!) — and, of course, because of Labor Day — I figured this week would be a good one to evaluate how the NLRB has done so far this year. […]
On Thursday, September 7, I’ll moderate a free teleconference for the ABA Admin Law Section. Register here. It should be an interesting discussion about a timely issue: the Congressional Review Act and stays of rules. Here is the info: Revisiting Yesterday’s Rules: The Congressional Review Act, Agency Stays, and Beyond Both Congress and federal agencies […]
Judge Janice Rogers Brown has now retired from the D.C. Circuit. And how did she begin her final judicial opinion? “Every four years, we suffer through the celebration of democracy (and national nightmare) that is a presidential election.” I clerked for Judge Brown. She has always been kind to me and my family. And I […]
School will soon start again. Our 1Ls started orientation this week and our upper-level students start classes again on Monday. This week thus seems like a good one to offer unsolicited advice — especially because the D.C. Circuit only decided one case this week (which number, more or less, is what I predicted). Here we […]
This is my last week of summer — next week, the 1Ls arrive. I would say my summer vacation is coming to an end but, in fact, it doesn’t feel like I’ve had a vacation at all. Instead, this summer has been full of long days and short nights. (Hopefully, the result of all those […]
This post is self-indulgent; I apologize. This week marks the end of another year of D.C. Circuit Review — Reviewed. My first post was on August 10, 2015. It is now August 11, 2017. Between those two dates, I’ve authored more than 100 posts about the work of the D.C. Circuit. (I don’t think anyone […]
It is said that August is a “quiet” month in Washington, D.C. And in many ways that is true. The Supreme Court is not in session. Congress will recess.* The President is on vacation. And because the nation’s capital is miserable in August, weather-wise, many of the locals get out of town. The D.C. Circuit, […]
The D.C. Circuit just added another case to its opinion page.* As you may recall, in June the Court decided a case called Global Tel*Link v. FCC about phone rates for prisoners. This is what I wrote then: In Global Tel*Link, the Court addressed the FCC’s 2015 Order imposing a cap on rates for inmate […]
417 pages. Four hundred seventeen pages. Cuatrocientos diecisiete páginas. Quadringentos annos pages. 417ページ.* The D.C. Circuit’s opinions this week come in at 417 pages. And these pages are not easy pages; we have high-level constitutional law, dense environmental law, a major circuit split about Medicare, a very important case about terrorism, and a sighting of […]
Judge Henderson of late has been adding epigraphs to her opinions. Last week she did it in Maze v. IRS: “No taxes can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant.” And this week she did it in Bellagio, LLC v. NLRB: In Vegas, everybody’s gotta watch everybody else. Since the players […]
“Effective August 31, 2017,” Judge Janice Rogers Brown will retire — not take senior status — from the D.C. Circuit. I clerked for Judge Brown and consider her a mentor and friend. So in her honor, I have asked the good folks in BYU Law’s library to pull every dissent she has ever written. After […]
Last year I introduced the Asterisk Game. For the table of authorities in briefs filed in the D.C. Circuit, “an asterisk may be placed next to those authorities on which the brief principally relies, together with a notation at the bottom of the first page of the table stating: ‘Authorities upon which we chiefly rely […]
The D.C. Circuit does not normally issue opinions on Mondays, but it did this week — and the opinion is a noteworthy one. In Clean Air Council v. Pruitt, a per curiam panel (Judges Tatel and Wilkins) held that EPA lacks authority under the Clean Air Act to stay implementation of a regulation governing methane […]
Here at Notice & Comment, we square our shoulders and address the hard questions. No matter how controversial, no matter how divisive, we do not flinch from this duty. After all, we fill our bellies here with meat, not milk; we put away childish things. The time therefore has come for all right-thinking men and […]