Guest post by Professors Jonas Anderson[1] and Paul Gugliuzza[2]
On Tuesday, March 12, 2024, the Judicial Conference of the United States—the self-governing body of the federal judiciary—held a press conference and issued a press release touting the Conference’s “strengthen[ing of] the policy governing random case assignment, limiting the ability of litigants to effectively choose judges in certain cases by where they file a lawsuit.”
As we’ve explained in a series of articles, in many federal courts throughout the country, all or practically all cases are assigned to a single judge, giving litigants the ability to “judge shop”—that is, to choose their own judge. Many divisional court houses are associated with a single federal judge, and cases filed in that courthouse are assigned to that predetermined judge.
Judge shopping has been a particularly long-standing problem in patent cases and corporate bankruptcy cases. More recently, Republican state attorneys general have filed numerous challenges to federal government actions on matters such as abortion, gun control, and immigration in single-judge divisions in Texas.
After a few days of confusion about the scope and content of the Judicial Conference’s new policy on case assignment, the Conference subsequently released a three-page document titled Guidance for Civil Case Assignment in District Courts.
The Judicial Conference’s interest in stopping judge shopping is commendable—it’s hard to think of any principled reason why a party should be able to pick the individual judge who hears their case. But we see at least three major flaws in the Judicial Conference’s action.
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