Certworthy Summer 2006 TM The newsletter of the DRI Appellate Advocacy Committee In This Issue… A Primer on Motions for Summary Affirmance in the Federal Courts A Primer on Motions for of Appeals ............................. 1 Appellate Advocacy Leadership Committee ............................ 2 Summary Affirmance in the Regional Editor Listing .......... 4 From the Chair: Federal Courts of Appeals The Hit Programs Keep Coming ................................. 5 Ralph W. Johnson, III late system and the judges who staff From The Editor: Halloran & Sage LLP it. The statistics in the 2005 Report Authors, Authors ................. 6 Hartford, CT from the Director of the Administra- The Ten Commandments Cases and
[email protected] tive Office confirm that there is no the Establishment Clause: Is “Location, Location, Location” end in sight to the “crisis of volume” the New Three-Part Test?.... 11 For a variety of reasons, the image of that the federal courts of appeals have Circuit Reports ..................... 17 appellate attorneys as practicing law been battling since the 1990s. The First Circuit ........................ 17 from “Ivory Towers” is a quickly van- caseload faced by these courts is, in a Sec ond Circuit ................... 18 ishing one. Given the high cost of word, “overwhelming.” For example, Third Circuit ...................... 19 litigation, appellate attorneys, like Fourth Circuit .................... 20 Table B to the Director’s report indi- Fifth Circuit........................ 21 other litigators, must be sensitive to cates that there was a 9.1 percent in- Sixth Circuit ....................... 23 the financial burden that litigation crease in number of appeals filed in Eighth Circuit..................... 24 imposes on their clients and must Fiscal Year 2005 (68,473) in the re- Ninth Circuit .....................