Law Commons^™

The Role Of A Judge In Modern Society: Some Reflections On Current Practice In Federal Appellate Adjudication, Harry T. Edwards

Cleveland State Law Review

In a recent article, I addressed one aspect of the complex of issues facing federal judges--the problems allegedly attendant upon the "bureaucratization" of the decision-making process at the appellate level. The present paper considers a different set of questions: taking as given the current organization, jurisdiction, and caseload of the federal courts, how might appellate judges alter their habits and attitudes so as to perform better their allotted tasks and how might Congress alter its own practices so as to facilitate the refinement and more effective utilization of appellate adjudication? The ensuing discussion of those topics is divided into three …