What we hope you saw: An exciting early-semester announcement that oral arguments before the Seventh Circuit would take place in Eckstein Hall on September 25; a smooth registration process; and on the day of, insightful lines of questioning during argument and various post-argument programs designed for students and attorneys to learn directly from the judges whose decisions fill our casebooks and support our federal filings.

But, in the nearly four months preceding, here is what was happening: Emails, meetings, more meetings, drafts upon drafts, games of phone tag, some mistakes, more emails, brisk walks, smiles, notes, and, at the end of the day, a sigh of happiness and, yes, relief.

It goes without saying that putting together a day like September 25 takes work. This is true for all of our big events at the Law School, from orientation to the National Sports Law Institute’s annual conference to PILSgiving to our annual lectures to the Jenkins Moot Court Competition to graduation. Staff and faculty work together to provide a seamless experience for students and guests. In some cases, it starts with a spreadsheet or a checklist from the previous year. The September 25th Seventh Circuit visit, without recent precedent, started with an email.

For the Seventh Circuit visit, the exchange began on April 30, 2025, when the court approached, via email of course, Marquette Law School to arrange a sitting at Eckstein Hall for the first time in 13 years. The thread quickly proceeded to include various parties including a key court administrator, Associate Dean Christine Wilczynski-Vogel, Dean Kearney, and, certainly not least, then-Chief Judge Diane Sykes, L’84. A late September date was set, the school’s calendar cleared, and we were off to the races.

At the heart of the planning—and really, all of our work at the Law School—was our students: their interests, availability, and capacity. I don’t think it a stretch to say that the most energy was expended on constructing a day that would allow all first-year students and all interested upper-level students to take part (through observation) in the oral arguments. It was, after all, the raison d’etre for the day in Eckstein Hall. In fact, while the dean and I sometimes have occasion to hop on a phone call to discuss a pressing matter, rarely does that call take place after 9:30 p.m. Proposing an oral argument structure to the court that would allow as many students to attend as possible, however, occasioned just this type of call on Thursday, June 26. It took place after my kid was tucked away in bed, the dishes done, and the dogs taken out for their final walk of the night. Some things are just more important than that night’s rewatch of a given episode of The West Wing.

Our faculty were involved throughout, especially our legal writing faculty. Other key members included Professor Oldfather (who recently authored a book on Judges, Judging, and Judgment and who would lead a CLE featuring the judges), Professor and Director of Clinical Education Anne Berleman Kearney (who would lead a Q&A session with the judges, designed specifically for our upper-level students), and our impressive corps of Appellate Writing and Advocacy faculty.

Faculty added sessions to their syllabus, integrated student attendance into their courses, even drafted synopses of the to-be-argued cases. They shifted class times to accommodate student attendance at the oral arguments, encouraged upper-level students to take part in whatever way made sense to them, and attended themselves, all the while aware of what a big impact one such day could have on a law student. Most lawyers (at least litigators) remember the first time they attended federal appellate arguments. To have it happen in your own law school, while you are a law student? It’s special. And faculty understand that better than most.

There were also, of course, the heretofore-untold technical and logistical elements that went into the planning. Associate Dean Christine Wilczynski-Vogel, Assistant Director of Student Affairs Sarah DiStefano, Event Planner Chad Wheeler, Director of Media and Technology Ryan Rau, and Manager of Building Operations Ben Manske, among others, expertly handled these elements.^* People contributed in ways that fall outside the corners of their job description or departments, as is so often the case at Marquette Law School, where the mission is less to put square pegs in square holes (if you’ll allow the adjustment to the phrase) and more to serve our students and develop the institution, as a whole, in the ways that suggest or present themselves.

For one small and perhaps extreme example, several individuals were involved in the creation of the registration form, which took on a life of its own. Anyone who has had the distinct pleasure of working with a form program such as Qualtrics, Wufoo, or Microsoft or Google Forms knows that there are different ways to build a form, including the creation of “logic” through rules that the creator identifies. But few people—I think—have had the experience of sorting through such possibilities with Dean Kearney. Suffice it to say that, with multiple constituencies, events, and concerns, we went through several drafts of the form before the final version took hold. Guess how many drafts, then add five, and you’re a bit closer to the actual number.

So, what’s left? Name tags or no? Promote in Law News or not? Handheld microphone or lavalier or gooseneck? Sure, these probably seem like trivial matters from an outsider’s perspective (and even, at times, from an insider’s perspective . . .). But when the goal is perfection, details matter. Was perfection achieved? Maybe not. And yet, on September 25, we hope you saw none of these details, none of the behind-the-scenes minutiae. If that’s the case, then I hazard to say, we came as close to achieving perfection as possible.

* And I haven’t even shared the various decisions and arrangements made by the involved judges, court staff, and security. Their work is tireless and impressive, though maybe not so appropriate for a blog post from the Law School to detail.

Here are links to the previous parts of the Seventh Circuit Day series: first, second, third, and fourth.