Federal Judges Revealed

The power and influence of the federal judiciary has been widely discussed and understood. And while there have been a fair number of institutional studies-studies of individual district courts or courts of appeal--there have been very few studies of the judiciary that emphasize the judges themselves. Federal Judges Revealed considers approximately one hundred oral histories of Article Three judges, extracting the most important information, and organizing it around a series of presented topics such as "How judges write their opinions" and "What judges believe make a good lawyer."

INTRODUCTION. ONE: LIFE BEFORE ADMISSION TO THE BAR. TWO: WHEN THEY WERE LAWYERS. THREE: JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS RECOUNTED. FOUR: ONCE APPOINTED, TRANSITION TO THE JOB. FIVE: NATURE OF THE JOB. SIX: IN CHAMBERS, IN COURT AND GETTING ALONG WITH OTHERS. SEVEN: JUDICIAL OPINIONS. EIGHT: JUDGES ON LAWYERS AND OTHER JUDGES. LIST OF QUOTED ORAL HISTORIES. INDEX.

William Domnarski is an attorney in Riverside, California who practices exclusively in the federal court system. He has written In the Opinion of the Court (University of Illinois Press, 1996) and The Great Justices 1941-54: Black, Douglas, Frankfurter, and Jackson in Chambers (University of Michigan Press, 2006).