Maine Law Review Volume 63 Number 2 Symposium:Remembering Judge Article 6 Frank M. Coffin: A Remarkable Legacy January 2011 Coffin's Court: A Colleague's View Levin Campbell Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/mlr Part of the Courts Commons, Judges Commons, and the Jurisprudence Commons Recommended Citation Levin Campbell, Coffin's Court: A Colleague's View, 63 Me. L. Rev. 417 (2011). Available at: https://digitalcommons.mainelaw.maine.edu/mlr/vol63/iss2/6 This Article and Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at University of Maine School of Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Maine Law Review by an authorized editor of University of Maine School of Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. COFFIN’S COURT: A COLLEAGUE’S VIEW The Honorable Levin Campbell I. JOINING THE COFFIN COURT II. MORE ABOUT THE CIRCUIT COURTS AND THE FIRST CIRCUIT OF THE ‘70S III. ABOUT COLLEAGUES AND FACILITIES ON THE COFFIN COURT IV. WHERE THE JUDGES WORKED V. FUNCTIONING OF THE JUDGES VI. GOING TO PUERTO RICO VII. COLLEGIALITY 418 MAINE LAW REVIEW [Vol. 63:2 COFFIN’S COURT: A COLLEAGUE’S VIEW The Honorable Levin Campbell* I. JOINING THE COFFIN COURT These reminiscences focus on the eleven years, from 1972 to 1983, that Frank M. Coffin of Maine was the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. While Coffin’s judicial career extended over more than forty years, I chose this period because it was a time when his influence over the court’s work was at its peak, as well as because he himself later singled it out as a “judicial Garden of Eden,”1 during which the First Circuit enjoyed its status as the last remaining three-judge federal court of appeals in the nation.