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Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Courts - "Exacting Easterbrook to Be Chief of 7th Circuit"

Lynne Marek of the The National Law Journal has a long story today titled "Exacting Easterbrook to Be Chief of 7th Circuit." Some quotes:

The ascent of [Judge Frank H. Easterbrook], who has been on the court since 1985, will mean only a handful of changes for a court that he considers well-managed.

"It's running about as smoothly as one could hope for," Easterbrook said in a recent interview. "I could mess up and become notorious from that perspective, but there's nothing I could do I think to make people think it was a better court."

Easterbrook, 57, will take the top post when Chief Judge Joel M. Flaum turns 70, the age at which a chief judge is required to step aside and hand the baton to the most senior judge who hasn't been chief. Easterbrook is not particularly excited about the new job, which is mainly an administrative one, because he'd rather spend time on judicial work. Still, he said he's duty-bound to take his turn.

As chief, he'll have general oversight of staff, facilities and budget matters for the 15 courts in the three states of Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. He will also handle any concerns about the competence of about 100 judges on those courts.

To make more time for court work, he's cutting one of the two courses he typically teaches at the University of Chicago Law School and is reducing his commute by moving his home closer to the federal courthouse in downtown Chicago.

Easterbrook, who is single and has no children, hopes that his new duties won't disrupt his practice of spending three months of the year in Alaska, never more than two weeks at a time, while sometimes telecommuting for work. The Buffalo, N.Y., native said he loves Alaska's climate, mountains and animals. He spends a lot of time hiking and watching the wildlife, he said. * * *

Easterbrook was appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan after he had been a law professor at the University of Chicago for eight years and while he was working for the economic consulting firm Lexecon Inc. He worked in the Solicitor General's Office from 1974 to 1979, arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court on a number of occasions.

As a scholar and a judge, he's "had an enormous impact because of the forcefulness of his reason, the clarity of his writing and his willingness to stake out the non-traditional positions," said Dan Fischel, a former University of Chicago Law School dean who now teaches at Northwestern University School of Law. Fischel, who is also president of Lexecon, co-authored with Easterbrook "The Economic Structure of Corporate Law," a book that "revolutionized" the approach to corporate law and is still used to teach law 15 years after its publication, said Dan Klerman, a professor of law and history at the University of Southern California. * * *

The two biggest challenges for any chief judge today are maintaining a collegial court and grappling with a burgeoning docket using static resources, said David Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University Law Center.

"This is a court that has avoided many of the tensions and the internecine battles that have marked other appellate courts, and I would expect he will do what he can to maintain that tradition," Vladeck said.

Easterbrook proudly notes that the 7th Circuit annually publishes about as many opinions as the 9th Circuit, which has about three times as many judges. Both circuits published about 600 written and signed opinions last year, according to the 7th Circuit's annual report. The 7th Circuit also allows more oral argument than most of the other appellate courts, he said.

While attorneys, professors and colleagues mainly praise Easterbrook's intellect and knowledge of law, their opinions about his tough courtroom style vary widely. Some say he's too harsh with attorneys, but are reluctant to talk about it publicly, given the possibility they may face him in court. He elicits a combination of reactions: Attorneys find him intimidating, but also intellectually challenging.

Stephen Moore, an attorney with Chicago-based Rowland & Moore, said that his time before Easterbrook "was probably the most enjoyable oral argument I ever had," describing it as "dueling with a brilliant mind."

But he also noted, "[y]ou'll see him, I don't want to say attacking an attorney, but putting them on the defensive. All parties are subject to his wrath."

Easterbrook earned the second-highest ranking in a 2003 study that sought to quantify the quality of federal judges' work by, among other things, counting citations to their work and measuring how fast they produced opinions. Easterbrook's fellow 7th Circuit judge, Richard Posner, ranked No. 1.

"It's not just that he comes out ahead of everybody, except for Richard Posner," said Mitu Gulati, a Duke Law School professor who co-authored the study. "It's by how much he comes out ahead. They're off the charts."

There is much more in this article.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on August 29, 2006 07:31 AM
Posted to Courts in general