How Appealing



Wednesday, April 1, 2015

“Five citizen activists with 99Rise interrupted the U.S. Supreme Court a day before the one-year anniversary of its outrageous McCutcheon v. FEC decision, which eliminated aggregate limits on individual campaign spending.” The99Rise has posted this video online at YouTube (via Rick Hasen).

Posted at 8:02 PM by Howard Bashman



“Protest at the Supreme Court. Only problem? Few reporters were there to see it.” Al Kamen has this post at the “In the Loop” blog of The Washington Post.

Posted at 7:51 PM by Howard Bashman



“The Third Circuit last year issued the fewest published opinions of any circuit, again”: Matthew Stiegler has this post today at his “CA3blog.”

Posted at 3:14 PM by Howard Bashman



“Study Casts Doubt on Kantian Link to Bulgarian Law”: Jacob Gershman has this post at WSJ.com’s “Law Blog.”

Posted at 2:48 PM by Howard Bashman



“Supreme Court’s Big Gay Pandora’s Box: The idea that we should make gay marriage the law of the land and yet refuse to force businesses to follow that law is unjust and absurd.” Michael Tomasky has this essay online today at The Daily Beast.

Posted at 1:26 PM by Howard Bashman



“99 Rise Says It Has Disrupted #SCOTUS Again, with Campaign Finance Messages”: Rick Hasen has this post at his “Election Law Blog.”

Posted at 11:17 AM by Howard Bashman



In this week’s installment of “Who are these irresponsible and unconstrained lawyers inflicting unnecessarily long briefs on the federal appellate courts?” On Monday, I had a post about a ruling that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued that day in a case captioned Georgia-Pacific Consumer Products LP v. von Drehle Corp. The second and final paragraph of my post explained:

Carter G. Phillips argued the appeal on behalf of the defendant-appellant, while Miguel A. Estrada argued the appeal on behalf of the plaintiff-appellee.

In exchange for a $9 contribution to PACER, I can now report that the Phillips brief for appellant contained 13,620 words, the Estrada brief for appellee contained 13,999 words (leaving one word to spare), and the Phillips reply brief for appellant contained 6,926 words. Each of these briefs is considerably in excess of the new word limits now under consideration for the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure.

Earlier installments of this series can be accessed here and here.

Posted at 11:03 AM by Howard Bashman



Access this blog’s coverage of the proposal to reduce the maximum word length of federal appellate briefs from 14,000 words to 12,500 words: Today, the Federal Appellate Rules Advisory Committee is holding a public hearing in Washington, DC to receive additional comments on the proposal to reduce the maximum word length of federal appellate briefs from 14,000 words to 12,500 words, a reduction of greater than ten percent. I will link to news coverage of that hearing when it becomes available.

Via the following links, you can access earlier “How Appealing” coverage of the FRAP word limit reduction proposal, arranged by the titles of the posts to which the links will take you:

Proposal to shorten the maximum length of principal briefs filed in the U.S. Courts of Appeals from 14,000 words to 12,500 words;

How to comment on the proposed amendments to the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure;

Seventh Circuit Judge Frank H. Easterbrook criticizes the proposal to reduce the word limit for principal appellate briefs from 14,000 words to 12,500 words;

Senior D.C. Circuit Judge Laurence H. Silberman lauds the proposal to reduce the word limit for principal appellate briefs from 14,000 words to 12,500 words;

I have decided to OPPOSE the word limit reduction on federal appellate briefs, plus an additional public comment opportunity for you;

How rife of a problem are unnecessarily long federal appellate briefs?;

Who are these irresponsible and unconstrained lawyers inflicting unnecessarily long briefs on the federal appellate courts? (plus a second example also posted the same day);

How did 14,000 words become the limit for principal federal appellate briefs?;

A reader anticipates perhaps the best (and no doubt most impractical) solution to overly long federal appellate briefs — a word limit individually customized to each appeal;

“[T]raditionally the Rules Committees do not amend a rule unless there is a very good reason to do so”;

Some FRAP briefing word limit expansion horror stories from the Third Circuit — your mileage may vary;

I have just submitted my public comment opposing the proposed FRAP briefing word limit reductions;

Legal writing guru Bryan A. Garner opposes the FRAP briefing word limit reductions;

What’s next in the battle over the proposed FRAP briefing word limit reductions?; and

From the guy who brought you the 28-day period in which to file post-judgment motions under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

All of the public comments (including mine) submitted in connection with the proposed FRAP briefing word limit reduction proposal can be accessed online via this link.

Posted at 10:40 AM by Howard Bashman