Part I of this Article discusses the problems circuit splits pose and how the circuit courts’ growing caseloads, combined with the Supreme Court’s shrinking docket, are perpetuating the potential for increasing circuit splits. Part II discusses the informal en banc procedures currently in place in the courts of appeals. Part III provides an overview of…

In their article in this issue, Professors Peter Menell and Ryan Vacca describe a federal court docket that is overloaded and unable to process cases efficiently. This article first considers whether the problems Menell and Vacca describe on the civil side afflict criminal litigation to the same extent. On the assumption that the problems in…

Like other supervisory lawyers, federal judges have twin responsibilities. They must comport with ethical and professional rules that govern their own behavior while simultaneously monitoring other attorneys to ensure they are not violating similarly controlling rules. The judicial robe, however, adds an extra dimension of responsibility in the trial oversight process…

In 2007, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts revitalized a little-known program to “foster communication” between the judicial and legislative branches, enabling federal appellate judges to send to Congress, without further comment, opinions “that describe possible technical problems in statutes.” In our view, such a program is sensible: The Judiciary is uniquely situated to…

Keynoter? What a daunting assignment before this gathering! I’m reminded of President John F. Kennedy’s remark at a dinner honoring Nobel Prize winners: “This is the most extraordinary collection of talent . . . that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” As I survey this…

A principal mission of the Berkeley Judicial Institute (BJI), which I am privileged to serve as Executive Director, is to “fill a long-standing need to establish an effective bridge between the legal academy and the judiciary.” This mission statement reflects a common perception among both legal scholars and judges that the two institutions often talk…

This Note will discuss how the erasure of LGBT victims from the domestic violence narrative has perpetuated the overuse of dual arrest and mutual restraining orders in domestic violence cases with same-sex couples despite the minimal use of these legal tools in the general population. Both the social narrative of domestic violence as well as…

California Senate Bill 1186 (SB 1186), proposed in 2018, would have implemented surveillance transparency, accountability, and oversight measures over the California Highway Patrol, the California Department of Justice, and every California police department, sheriff’s office, district attorney’s office, and school district and state university public safety department. Had it been enacted, SB 1186…

The modern federal judiciary was established well over a century ago by the Judiciary Act of 1891. Over the next seventy years, the structure and core functioning of the judiciary largely remained unchanged apart from gradual increases in judicial slots. By the mid-1960s, jurists, scholars, practitioners, and policy-makers had voiced grave concerns about the capacity…

On the eve of the financial crisis, a series of Delaware court decisions resulted in a radical change in law: creditors would no longer have the kind of common law protections from opportunism that helped protect their bargains for the better part of two centuries. In this Article, we argue that Delaware’s shift materially altered…

A growing set of social movements has in recent years revived interest in “community control,” the idea that local residents should exercise power over services like the police, infrastructure, and schools. These range from a call from the Partnership for Working Families, a grassroots coalition, to build community control through the direct democratic governance of…

Diverse areas of law regulate acts of rescue, often inconsistently. For example, maritime law mandates rescue, immigrant harboring law prohibits it, and tort law generally permits it but does not require it. Modern legal scholarship has focused principally on mandatory and permissive forms of rescue. With humanitarian actors facing prosecution for saving migrants’ lives in…