This has been a momentous week in the D.C. Circuit. Chief Judge Garland is now Judge Garland again, and Judge Srinivasan is now Chief Judge Srinivasan.* Here is the press release: This news reminded me of something: I owe Chief Judge Srinivasan a belated thank you. I was a law firm associate in 2011. One […]

A year ago I wrote a post called Standing. In that post, I suggested that “the law professors suing President Trump about the Emoluments Clause ‘pretty clearly lack Article III standing.’”  Well, today, we learned for a fact that the members of Congress who sued President Trump about the Emoluments Clause lack standing. Here is how the […]

Law professor-ing can be a pretty cushy job. At first, teaching is hard, but it gets easier. Serving on committees takes time — but thankfully, I’ve yet to witness Sayre’s Law in action. And, candidly, it doesn’t take that much time. Writing letters of recommendation* is also part of a professor’s life, but it is […]

To sports fans, the term “bulletin board material” refers to a demeaning statement from the other team that is used to fire everyone up. And that’s a shame. For you see, bulletin boards can do much more than prompt already very competitive individuals to be even more competitive. In fact, a bulletin board changed my […]

This has been a busy week in the legal world — but not in the D.C. Circuit’s corner of it.* The Court issued just two decisions, neither of which, frankly, is likely to make much of a splash in the media. In Holland v. Arch Coal, Inc., Judge Ginsburg (joined by Judges Tatel and Srinivasan) […]

I try to keep my opinions to myself about D.C. Circuit’s decisions, at least for purposes of D.C. Circuit Review – Reviewed. “When it comes to these posts, I see my role as a reporter, not a critic.“* I do this for a couple of reasons. First, without doing a lot more work, it often […]

We have one opinion this week — and it is the last opinion of the decade.* That by itself makes it unusual. Beyond that though, this opinion may prove to be unusually significant for labor law. And Judge Millett has been waiting for just such an opinion since 2016. Not a bad way to end […]

My extended family enjoys large holiday meals. When lots of individual families bring food, the multi-family table fills up quickly. On Christmas Eve, for instance, we had both a turkey and a ham — and potatoes, stuffing, rolls, and pie(s). Then on Christmas, we rendezvoused again for two kinds of enchiladas, Spanish rice, watermelon,* crunchy […]

In 2016, I wrote a lengthy post about Christmas in the D.C. Circuit. Since then, I have been updating it every year.* So here you go — the 2019 edition of the story of Christmas in the D.C. Circuit. Be warned, though: Christmas is not always jolly. Consider, for instance, the case of Anderson v. White, […]

Well now he’s done it — big time. Orin Kerr has crossed the line. Sure, Professor Kerr writes interesting posts over at the Volokh Conspiracy. Yes, he may be the leading Fourth Amendment scholar of his generation. And true, he may be sociable — even friendly — when you speak to him in person. But […]

This will be another quick post. This week the Senate confirmed Lawrence VanDyke to the Ninth Circuit. Last month the Senate confirmed Steve Menashi to the Second Circuit. Last year the Senate confirmed Ryan Nelson to the Ninth Circuit. What do these three judges have in common? All clerked on the D.C. Circuit and are […]

This will be a quick post; I’m traveling and the wifi on my plane is about to end. Today I participated in a Summit on Modernizing the Administrative Procedure Act at the U.S. Department of Justice. I spoke on a panel about Lessons from the Life of Administrative Law. As I prepared to speak, I […]

Separation-of-powers cases tend to be controversial. For instance, when the D.C. Circuit last addressed removal and initially concluded that Congress could not grant the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Director “for cause” protection, the United States argued that the panel had “set[] up what may be the most important separation-of-powers case in a generation.” What followed […]

It is hard to not be intrigued by a writ of mandamus — one of “‘the most potent weapons in the judicial arsenal,’” and “a ‘drastic and extraordinary remedy reserved for really extraordinary causes.’” It is no small thing for a court, in the middle of proceedings, to order someone “to properly fulfill their official […]