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Full-Text Articles in Legal Writing and Research
"Downright Indifference": Examining Unpublished Decisions In The Federal Courts Of Appeals, Merritt E. Mcalister
"Downright Indifference": Examining Unpublished Decisions In The Federal Courts Of Appeals, Merritt E. Mcalister
Michigan Law Review
Nearly 90 percent of the work of the federal courts of appeals looks nothing like the opinions law students read in casebooks. Over the last fifty years, the so-called “unpublished decision” has overtaken the federal appellate courts in response to a caseload volume “crisis.” These are often short, perfunctory decisions that make no law; they are, one federal judge said, “not safe for human consumption.”
The creation of the inferior unpublished decision also has created an inferior track of appellate justice for a class of appellants: indigent litigants. The federal appellate courts routinely shunt indigent appeals to a second-tier appellate …
The Myth Of The Disposable Opinion: Unpublished Opinions And Government Litigants In The United States Courts Of Appeals, Lauren K. Robel
The Myth Of The Disposable Opinion: Unpublished Opinions And Government Litigants In The United States Courts Of Appeals, Lauren K. Robel
Michigan Law Review
This article discusses the courts' adoption of the limited publication plans and analyzes the methods used by the courts to discourage the use of unpublished opinions. It also discusses the results of a survey conducted to determine if, and how, government litigants - some of the chief unanticipated beneficiaries of the publication plans make use of unpublished opinions. Finally, it challenges the assumption that limited publication is essential in an age of caseload crisis.