Congratulations to Mary McElroy, who finally got confirmed as a federal district judge to the District of Rhode Island, bringing the court back to full strength with three active district judges and two magistrate judges. Originally nominated in 2015, the Senate took four years to confirm her. This type of lag time makes it virtually impossible for a nominee to survive in private practice. It’s hard to maintain a clientele when you could be elevated to the federal bench tomorrow, at some far-off date, or not at all. On the other hand, 4 years is only 4.7% of the time it took the Red Sox to win the World Series again after 1918. Ironically, although it can take forever to confirm new federal district judges, they hit the ground running at full speed. The Federal Judicial Center’s “Baby Judges School” helps with this task.
Being a federal judge seems daunting. Sure, you get lifetime tenure, decide constitutional issues of import, wear a robe, and upon retirement get an annuity for the rest of your life at full salary after age 65. See 28 U.S.C. 371(a). However, most lawyers specialize in a field and practice law on the premise that it’s virtually impossible to be an expert in all subject areas. To give a concrete example, I don’t know anyone who is simultaneously an expert on intellectual property, maritime law, social security disability, medical malpractice, environmental law, and labor law. Such a lawyer would be superhuman. But that’s basically what’s expected of judges. It’s sort of like going from a sculptor to a painter, writer, architect, photographer, actor and sculptor. Or from a baseball catcher to a first baseman, shortstop, left fielder, pitcher, closer, third base coach, general manager and catcher. (In other words, former Red Sox utility player Steve Lyons).
Perhaps this is why the Federal Judicial Center holds its self-titled “Baby Judges School” for all new federal district judges like Judge McElroy. Officially known as the Orientation Seminar for Newly Appointed District Judges, it is “affectionately known throughout the federal Judiciary as Baby Judges School” and brings together newly-minted judges for training. At Baby Judges School, new federal district judges learn skills for tackling voir dire, ethics, managing case loads, mediation and settlement, running trials, making evidentiary rulings, and issuing sentences to convicted criminal defendants.
Along with Baby Judges School, new federal district judges have many administrative tasks to complete. They get sworn in, have an investiture ceremony, and must settle into their chambers. They have to hire their in-chambers staff, which usually consists of three people, at least two of whom are law clerks. They also get a case manager (in charge of the docket) and a courtroom deputy (in charge of the courtroom) assigned from the clerk’s office.
And then the new federal district judges get the cases. The seating of a new federal judge like Judge McElroy creates a re-shuffling of the dockets of the other district judges already seated in the district. Before Judge McElroy’s arrival, Chief Judge Smith and Judge McConnell each had 50% of the district’s docket. With Judge McElroy now seated, each judge will have 33% of the docket. If past is prologue, Judge McElroy’s caseload will not grow organically as new cases come in. Instead, Judges Smith and McConnell will each select one-third of their own dockets, and those cases will be reassigned immediately to Judge McElroy. This type of reassignment is a unique and one-time event that seems to only occur when a new federal district judge is seated.
Normally, per District of Rhode Island Local Rule 105, cases are assigned to active federal district judges at random. The judge has to take the case assigned at random and normally cannot decline it except on ethical grounds, such as a conflict of interest. (This is different from Senior District Judges, who are technically retired and can decline a case if they do not want to take it). As far as I’m aware, the seating of a new district judge is the one time that sitting federal judges get to select their dockets in a global manner. After Judges Smith and McConnell select which cases to reassign to Judge McElroy, each judge will have a random 33% chance of getting new cases as they are filed, and the rule will go back to each judge cannot decline new cases except on ethical grounds.