Journal of Appellate Practice and Process articles from September 2006

Journal of Appellate Practice and Process archives from September 2006

How I got to the New York Court of Appeals.
September 22, 2006... With nervousness matched only by anticipation, I sat in the passenger's seat. My friend--and opponent on the appeal--Robert Ostertag drove us up from Poughkeepsie, where I was an assistant district attorney about to argue my first case in New...

All right, retired judges, write!
September 22, 2006... If I would suggest a single thesis for the question before the House, it would be: Find the time to do all the things you never had time for during your active years on the bench. Some obvious activities come to mind: Traveling with your...

Transitioning.(judge's role changing through the years)
September 22, 2006... Life "after the bench" probably has as many patterns as there are judges lucky enough to have become eligible for retiring. As for me, at age eighty-seven and after forty-one rewarding years on the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, I...

One judge's journey.(Wisconsin)
September 22, 2006... After twelve years as a Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge and five years as a Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, I made the difficult decision to leave the judiciary in the middle of a ten-year term. Although I loved being a judge, I felt that...

Stepping down.(Maine)
September 22, 2006... I left the Maine Supreme Judicial Court for the federal trial court in 1990. At the time, I expected to miss the collegiality of the appellate bench and the satisfaction of resolving legal issues deliberately and studiously. But I looked...

Retired and working.(Canada)
September 22, 2006... I retired from the Bench at sixty-three, after ten years as a trial judge and seventeen as an appeal judge. In Canada, judges are appointed for "life," which constitutionally ends at age 75. So why quit twelve years before I was required to do...

A firm foundation for life after the bench.
September 22, 2006... For me any discussion of life after the bench necessarily involves the history of a law firm in Portland, Maine, over a period of more than a half century. Straight from law school graduation and two judicial clerkships, (1) I joined...

Appealing remand orders under the Class Action Fairness Act.
September 22, 2006... Defendants generally may not appeal orders that remand cases once removed to federal court. (1) For parties in cases filed as class actions, however, Congress provided in February 2005 a new avenue for appellate review through 28 U.S.C....

Advocacy at its best: the views of Appellate Staff Attorneys.
September 22, 2006... I. INTRODUCTION TO THE SURVEY The American Bar Association's Council of Appellate Staff Attorneys challenges its members to provide the appellate judges of the United States with the very best legal analysis and writing possible. As part...

A snapshot of briefs, opinions, and citations in federal appeals.
September 22, 2006... To assist the federal courts in deciding whether to require the courts of appeals to accept citations to their unpublished opinions, the Federal Judicial Center assessed the frequency of citations to unpublished opinions in a sample of federal...

Reflections on appellate courts: an appellate advocate's thoughts for judges.
September 22, 2006... I. INTRODUCTION When writing an article to an audience of appellate judges, appellate advocate Moses Lasky spoke of the delicate nature of the task: Unlike the teacher of law, the poor lawyer occupies no Olympian coign of...

eBAY v. MerceXchange as a sign of things to come: is the Supreme Court still reluctant to hear patent cases?
September 22, 2006... I. INTRODUCTION Several years ago, I wrote a short practice note for this journal, (1) suggesting in it that the United States Supreme Court's then-recent decision in The Holmes Group, Inc. v. Vornado Air Circulation Systems, Inc. (2)...