The Latest Breaking News from the Judicial Conference

Now, for better or worse, the Judicial Conference has shown itself to be pliable by the political currents.

This court will not "make any change to our case assignment process at this time."

"Surreptitious Steps" to draw a Carter appointee in a deep red state demonstrate why the Judicial Conference's policy would not work.

Rather than addressing bankruptcy and patent forum and judge shopping, on which there is a large bipartisan consensus, the Judicial Conference rushed through a botched proposal in response to political pressure and Twitter noise.

I pass along this comment I received from a well-known attorney in Texas who clerked on both the federal District Court level and at the Fifth Circuit. I suspect this attorney's views are widely shared: The memo to the judiciary has now become available, but that does not address the…

I obtained a copy of the report approved by the Judicial Conference. First, why on earth could this memo not have been issued contemporaneously with the press release? This may be one of the most-botched governmental rollouts since HealthCare.gov. The Executive Committee should carefully re-assess their procedures here. Second, the…

A general power to issue orders to judicial employees does not trump a specific power for district courts to make their own rules about case assignments.

"It is Congress that decides how cases should be assigned in the inferior courts and Congress has already spoken on this issue in an enacted statute."

We should wait until we know what (if anything) is happening.

The way to depoliticize the courts is to depoliticize the courts.

I was delighted to see the Judicial Conference of the United States is acting to promote random case assignment in certain declaratory judgment and injunction cases. You can read the press release here. It will be important to see the details, but as outlined, this policy change will ameliorate the…