If Dems Win 2020, Will BigLaw Lose Its Grip On The Bench?

Details

Publish Date:
September 10, 2019
Author(s):
Source:
Law360
Related Person(s):

Summary

At first, former U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chair Jenny Yang couldn’t understand why so many people were sending her an Atlantic op-ed with the headline “No More Corporate Lawyers On The Federal Bench.”

Then she read the piece, which recommended her for the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It was definitely nice that they thought of me as somebody who could serve in that role and provide my experience,” she said.

That poses “a challenge that doesn’t exist on the right side of the aisle,” says David Engstrom, associate dean at Stanford Law School and one of dozens of academics and attorneys on Building The Bench’s advisory council.

“Democrats have always been a more diverse and more multifaceted bunch,” Engstrom said. “The challenge when thinking about who should sit on the bench is how to tap that diversity of viewpoint and experience.”

Targeting the lower federal bench, which the Trump administration has filled at breakneck speed may be a winning short-term strategy to shift the judiciary, Engstrom says

“Trial judges are incredibly important, both because lots of cases don’t get appealed, and because trial judges decide cases in ways that make them more and less appealable,” he said. “The Supreme Court can’t take every case, and frankly it has taken fewer cases in recent years than it has historically.”

Read More