It's raining!

Last Saturday's Wall St. Journal had AmicusBriefs Inundate Supreme Court. "[T]he volume of amicus briefs today is breaking records. The court’s last full term, 2019-20, saw 911 amicus briefs filed, for an average of 16 per case, according to a study published in the National Law Journal last November. That is up from 715, or an average of nine a case, in 2010-11. The longer-term growth is even greater: Such briefs were filed in 96% of cases argued before the Supreme Court over the past decade but in just 23% of cases in the decade ended in 1955."

There is “compelling evidence that amicus briefs matter,” said Prof. Paul Collins, a political-science professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has studied the influence of amicus briefs. “The justices routinely cite amicus briefs, they incorporate the arguments from the briefs into their opinions,” he said.

The WSJ also has Sheldon Whitehouse vs. the Supreme Court: The Senator threatens the Justices on amicus-brief disclosure. And The U.S. Needs More Federal Judges: Neither side wants to give the other an appointment windfall, but there's a way to break the impasse.

Today's DJ (in Careful Researcher) profiles San Bernardino Superior Court Judge Lynn Poncin, who is the presiding judge of the court's appellate division. "[A]ppellate attorneys must do more than state that a trial attorney was ineffective. 'The appellant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for errors made at the trial level, the result of the proceeding would have been different,'” Poncin said.

Earlier this week the 9th Cir. published Rice v. Morehouse, addressing the validity of a notice of appeal that did not specifically indicate that the appeal was from a summary judgment order.

ABTL is presenting The Road Ahead: A Judicial Update on Current and Post-Covid Practice, March 23 at 5:30 p.m., featuring 9th Cir. Judge Kim Wardlaw and 2/7's Justice John Segal. Register here.