Sean Marotta

I knew you mostly by the blue background over your head in the last one.

Ah! New profile pic!

. . . Illinois?

Nazis are worse than people who yell at you because they have never encountered a joke before, but the latter isn't good.

Your engagement farming gets you nothing here, Sara.

The proposed rule says that if the state bar declines to defer to the DOJ investigation, the Attorney General "shall take appropriate action," which who even knows what that means. File a lawsuit? Stamp feet?

It's a uniquely Law360-ism because of the tight character limits they have for headlines on the e-mail newsletters.

Love the number of negatives you need to pack into this headline to convey what DOJ did today.

Nah. That's pretty common when you don't want to get accused of mis-paraphrasing the other side.

Ha! I cropped it because it had random stuff from my PDF viewer at the bottom! (No, I do not want to summarize with Microsoft Copilot!)

It is Abhishek S. Kambli, DAAG.

We will see! I am sure a lot of very, very smart appellate lawyers are working the issue right now.

I am so here for this content.

There is also an argument from Appellate Rule 42(c)'s "a court order is required for any relief under Rule 42(b)(1) or (2) beyond the dismissal of an appeal" that a motion under Rule 42(b)(2) JUST requesting dismissal does not require a court order.

Your lips to God's ears every time I need to switch between Fed. R. Civ. P. 6 and Fed. R. App. P. 26.

So, although I would have never thought of it before, as an appellee, do you need to insist on a stipulation instead of a motion to dismiss just in case your appellant decides to back out of an agreement to dismiss? /Fin

But arguably, a stipulation is effective as soon as it is signed and filed with the Clerk. That is how the analogous Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) works. A motion, by contrast, suggests needing court action before the dismissal is effective. /3

In my experience, motions are more common than stipulations, for incredibly pedestrian reasons. You don't need to format everyone's signature blocks on the paper. You don't need approval on the precise wording from the other parties. You can just move to dismiss and say no one opposes. 2/

One practice point I thought I'd never have to say following DOJ's un-dismissal of the EO cases.

There are two ways to dismiss an appeal under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b): By stipulation or by motion. 1/

To be clear, this is not the Court's or the Clerk's fault by any stretch. You expect it to take a day or two before the Clerk processes the dismissal. But it is a sign of how stunning this is.

What is also amazing is that if the D.C. Circuit Clerk's Office had moved a little faster, the Court might have dismissed the appeal this morning before the motion to withdraw the motion was filed and this would have not happened (or would have happened quite differently.).

DOJ has asked a federal appeals court to un-drop its challenge to lower-court rulings that President Trump illegally targeted law firms he disfavored.

Speechless. Government moves to not move to dismiss law firm EO appeals.

Omg.

Fed Soc's critics are focused on Fed Soc, as a shorthand for a group of influential lawyers associated with the organization, driving policy and positions broadly in the conservative legal movement, which, again, everyone agrees is true.

I also find this debate a bit uninteresting because it is largely a formalist approach versus a functional approach.

Fed Soc's defenders are focused on Fed Soc, as a corporate institution, not taking positions, which everyone agrees is true.

Yeah. I gave up my Fed Soc membership in Trump I when it took up a Republican pep rally environment at some events and invited more politicians than lawyers as speakers, so I agree with a lot of the criticism.

I mean, the ABA literally has a judicial nomination ratings committee, though I understand it came into play in a different portion of the process.

I take it Will's objection is that ABA is seen as an above-the-fray professional voice for the legal profession when it has distinct political views.

(Part of the argument also is that the Federalist Society qua Federalist Society has no official positions except a broad vision. But I think it is fair to say that the positions advanced by those in leadership in Fed Soc are, in a personnel-is-policy way, Fed Soc policy.)

The ABA and Federalist Society are both nonpartisan in the strict sense that neither endorses particular political parties or candidates for office. (The ACLU is nonpartisan in this sense, too.) But both the ABA and Federalist Society have distinct ideologies.

"Law reviews are terrible because students pick the articles. We should have a faculty-run law review."

"Oh, so the faculty editors will screen the slush pile?"

"No, no, no. We'll still have students do that."