Marquette University Law School
1215 W. Michigan St.
Milwaukee, WI 53233
United States
CLE Program
Thursday, September 25
- 4:00 p.m., program
- 5:00 to 6:30 p.m., reception
- 1 CLE credit
- Limited complimentary parking on-site
- The CLE program and reception immediately following are complimentary, but registration is required.
The typical professional seminar on appellate practice focuses on things that lawyers should and shouldn’t do. They should be mindful of standards of review, avoid “kitchen sink” approaches to issue selection, and so forth. The advice is appropriate but familiar. This panel will shift the focus to the judges and the process by which they decide cases, with the goal of helping lawyers in an important aspect of any advocacy: Know your audience.
More specifically, if still at a level of generality: How do judges approach questions of law with which they are relatively unfamiliar, or questions that are complex, or those that are difficult despite being in a familiar area? What is it that leads to the conclusion that an issue actually is difficult? What types of sources beyond the briefs, such as treatises or law review articles, do judges tend to turn to, and at what stage of the process do they consult them? How much truth is there in Judge Henry Friendly’s observation that “each judge judges differently from every other judge and that any one judge judges differently in each case”? Or Judge Richard Posner’s claim that “[m]ost judges evaluate cases in a holistic, intuitive manner, reaching a tentative conclusion that they then subject to technical legal analysis”?
In short, how do judges go about deciding?
The program will involve a conversation with four judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, moderated by Professor Chad M. Oldfather, author of Judges, Judging, and Judgment.
