The Real Value in Appellate Oral Argument

moot-court_trimmedDoes appellate oral argument still matter?  In some courts with exceptionally heavy caseloads, such as the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, oral argument is vanishingly rare.  But even in courts that regularly hold oral argument, some observers claim that it has devolved into a dog-and-pony show unlikely to move judges who have already reached unspoken decisions based on often-voluminous briefing.

It may surprise some practitioners to learn that certain appellate courts have even taken to issuing “tentative” opinions prior to oral argument.  Certain branches of the California appellate courts have been among the leaders in this regard; the web page for the 4th District, 2nd Division claims that “the justices do not sense that their deliberations are any less objective than before the tentative opinion program began” and that “counsel almost unanimously praise the program.”

Proponents of the practice contend that it has several distinct advantages. 

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Big Demand for a Win-Win Way to Resolve Mortgage Crises

handshakeUnfortunately, business is booming when it comes to foreclosure problems in Wisconsin. Fortunately, the Milwaukee Foreclosure Mediation Program is succeeding at helping a growing number of those problems end with people keeping their homes and financial institutions satisfied with new arrangements.

Debra Tuttle, chief mediator for the program, said during a panel discussion at a conference Friday on foreclosure issues in Wisconsin that from July 22, when the program began, through November 4, there were 278 requests for mediation, more than double the number that was anticipated.

Twenty cases have gone through the mediation process, with all but one resulting in the owner keeping the house, she said. More than twenty others have ended with agreement between the owner and lender without the mediation process. And 136 are awaiting mediation. 

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Obama’s Applause Lines on Education

teacherPresident Barack Obama’s 35-minute speech on education at Wright Middle School in Madison on Wednesday was interrupted by applause at many points, but most of the reaction was pretty low-key. Three lines drew what seemed to be more enthusiastic responses from the crowd of more than 500, most of them teachers, parents, and students at the 250-student school. Each of those lines says something significant about public sentiment and Obama administration priorities on education issues.

One: Obama said, “I’ve got to be honest, we’ve got to do a better job of moving bad teachers out of the classroom, once they’ve been given an opportunity to do it right.” His calls for recruiting higher-quality teachers and rewarding top teachers better didn’t get applause, but this line did. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a telephone interview after the speech that this didn’t surprise him — it happens wherever the president speaks about education, he said. Raising the quality of teachers, in large part by doing more to identify quality teachers (and those who aren’t) is one of the highest, but most difficult, priorities for Obama and Duncan. And moving out the ones who really aren’t good at it is especially difficult, particularly given the defensiveness of teachers’ unions when such issues come up.

Two: His call for overhauling the way testing is done nationwide. 

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