The Dwight D. Opperman Institute of Judicial Administration’s 51st annual New Appellate Judges Seminar on July 11-16 brought 30 federal, state, and military judges from across the country to the NYU School of Law. The judges, all of whom had spent less than five years on an appellate court, received practical and theoretical judicial training in a program led by Oscar Chase, Russell D. Niles Professor of Law and co-faculty director of the IJA, and Professor Troy McKenzie ’00.
Neal Katyal, who became acting solicitor general of the United States on May 17 after Elena Kagan vacated the position upon receiving her Supreme Court nomination, delivered a keynote address the first evening. The weeklong intensive seminar itself included sessions on oral argument; conferencing and the 
decision-making process; coherence, strength, and clarity in written opinions; statutory interpretation; evaluating legal research; and judicial ethics, among other topics.
The seminar’s judicial faculty in residence included Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Judge Rosemary Barkett of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, Judge Martha Craig Daughtrey of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, Justice Roderick L. Ireland of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Chief Justice Randall T. Shepard of the Indiana Supreme Court, and Judge Bea Ann Smith of the Texas Court of Appeals (retired), as well as Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, an NYU Law adjunct professor.
Apart from program co-directors Chase and McKenzie, Professor Rachel Barkow also represented NYU Law in a seminar session, as did Judge John Gleeson of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, an adjunct professor at the Law School.
Other seminar faculty included Professor William N. Eskridge, Jr. of Yale Law School, Professor Timothy Terrell of Emory Law School, and Dr. Isaiah M. Zimmerman of the Washington School of Psychiatry. Attorneys Erin E. Morrow and Erin E. Murphy, both of King & Spalding, argued an appeal in a simulation as part of the session on oral argument.
Posted on July 19, 2010