Single federal admission?

Is it annoying to have to get formally admitted to each different federal district court? (Each federal Court of Appeals?) Well, Is It Time for a Single Bar Admission Rule for All Federal District Courts? -- A proposal asks a federal judiciary rules committee to adopt a rule under which once an attorney is licensed in a state and admitted to one district court, they could practice in all 94 district courts.

The proposal, spearheaded by George Washington University Law School associate dean Alan Morrison and Thomas Alvord of the firm LawHQ, asks the Standing Committee on Rules of Practice and Procedure to adopt a rule under which once an attorney is licensed and admitted to one district court, they can practice in all 94 district courts. Currently, most but not all federal trial courts mandate local state bar admission, or to apply pro hac vice on a case-by-case basis with certain restrictions and fees.

Sixty of the 94 federal district courts require attorneys to be admitted to the local state bar, which means passing the bar exam in that state, according to the rule proposal. Each federal districts also charge admission fees, the lowest amount being $188, and some charge renewal fees every few years.

Previous efforts to change federal district court bar admissions requirements for out-of-state lawyers have failed.

Morrison and a number of groups also filed a petition in February 2018 with the Northern District of California asking that court to eliminate its local state bar requirement for admission. In a response letter two months later, Chief Judge Phyllis Hamilton said the entire court vetted the petition and voted to deny it. The Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit last year denied a petition for review.

Law360 has Brandon Boxler's Tips For Appellate Counsel Working With A Trial Team

In the no-second-bites department, see this unpub'd 4/1 decision (explaining that when a judgment is amended after an appeal, the 'new' judgment is not appealable) and this unpub'd 2/1 decision (appellant can't file "two opening briefs, one for each challenged judgment" -- the court rejected the second brief, advising appellant about the court's "policy that notices of appeal from the same trial court case filed within 30 days of each other are combined into a single appeal, and therefore the appellant may file only one opening brief.").