Dear 1Ls, Last fall I wrote a letter to your 2L colleagues. Now I’m going to write to you. Here’s the bottom line: If you want to clerk, the next few months are important. Many judges are waiting until applicants have their third or even fourth semester of grades. (Indeed, some judges prefer to interview […]
Scholars of administrative law study lots of things. We think, for instance, about recess appointments, especially in an era of divided government. We spend hours sussing out the differences, if any, between standards of review. All the while, we wonder what makes an “interpretative” rule interpretative, and whether certain areas of law are exceptional. And […]
Readers are hard to please. It is bad enough that we criticize books that we could not even begin to write. But even worse, when an author has penned something that we like, all too often our response is not “thank you” but rather “more please”—and sometimes we don’t say “please.” I confess that after […]
Here is an interesting fact: the D.C. Circuit has invoked Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu—better known as Charles de Montesquieu, the Baron Montesquieu, “ the celebrated Montesquieu,” or just Montesquieu—on at least nine separate occasions. Included in this list are some notable cases: Nixon v. Sirica, Buckley v. Valeo, and […]
This week was a very quiet one at the D.C. Circuit. There was only one decision and it had nothing to do with administrative law.* Perhaps it is spring break at the D.C. Circuit. (I’m kidding . . . probably.) So if you read D.C. Circuit Review – Reviewed for admin law opinions, take the […]
I learned something this week. By way of background, last September, I opened a Twitter account. As of now, I have 904 tweets. I’m biased, but I think that at least some of these tweets are insightful, at least as far as Twitter goes. Yet my most popular tweet of all time, by a fairly […]
On one hand, this was a quiet week in the D.C. Circuit; there were just two opinions, neither of which is that significant (though one is noteworthy for jurisdiction hawks).* On the other hand, President Obama nominated Chief Judge Garland to serve on the Supreme Court. So on net, it’s fair to say that this […]
A couple of months back, I offered the following rule of thumb: “If you want to understand an appellate judge, don’t spend too much time on majority opinions,” but instead “look to his or her separate writings.” It is in those opinions—opinions a judge doesn’t have to write—that one best observes a judge trying to […]
I remember well the indignation I felt when I first learned about unpublished decisions. The idea that an appellate court in a common-law system can issue a decision that “carries no precedential force“—an opinion good for one case only—struck me as scandalous. The rule of law, I felt, depended on precedential effect. But then I […]
Kimberly Robinson has posted an interesting story about how early you have to get up to get a ticket to a Supreme Court argument. The answer: sometimes very early. This reminded me of my post from last October: “No One Should Be Waiting in Lines.” The Supreme Court, like the Washington Monument, should make at […]
Last week, I praised Justice Elena Kagan for her sharp questions at oral argument. This week, however, her dissent in Lockhart v. United States prompts a friendly concern: Should there be pop culture references in Supreme Court opinions? Although such references are fun today, I fear they will confuse lawyers tomorrow. Indeed, just as the […]
Justice Elena Kagan has many talents, one of which is asking sharp questions at oral argument. For instance, one of my favorite moments as a litigator came, in a case about raisins, when Kagan asked these questions to the attorney for the United States: (1) “[B]efore you do that then [i.e., get to his prepared […]
The D.C. Circuit issued no opinions this week. Especially with this extra time, it is fitting to take a few moments to reflect on the “admin law” legacy of Justice Scalia, a former administrative law professor and surely one of the most important and talented jurists in the history of the Supreme Court. Justice Scalia […]
Today is a sad day for the United States. My favorite memory of Justice Scalia involves Halloween. I don’t know if the Supreme Court does this every year, but when I was there as a law clerk, the Supreme Court invited all the children of clerks to trick-or-treat from chambers to chambers. My kids were […]
The U.S. Supreme Court reminded the world this week that while the D.C. Circuit may be the nation’s “second most important court,” the Supreme Court remains the first. In particular, the Supreme Court decided to stay the EPA’s Power Plant Rule, even though a motions panel of the D.C. Circuit (Judges Henderson, Rogers, and Srinivasan) […]