The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal judiciary. They hear appeals of cases from the United States district courts and some U.S. administrative agencies, and their decisions can be appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. The courts of appeals are divided into 13 "Circuits". Eleven of the circuits are numbered "First" through "Eleventh" and cover geographic areas of the United States and hear appeals from the U.S. district courts within their borders. The District of Columbia Circuit covers only Washington, DC. The Federal Circuit hears appeals from federal courts across the entire United States in cases involving certain specialized areas of law.
The solicitor general of the United States, the fourth-highest-ranking official within the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), represents the federal government in cases before the Supreme Court of the United States. The solicitor general is appointed by the president and reports directly to the United States attorney general.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit is one of the 13 United States courts of appeals. It has appellate jurisdiction over the U.S. district courts in the following federal judicial districts:
The Harvard Law Review is a law review published by an independent student group at Harvard Law School. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the Harvard Law Review's 2015 impact factor of 4.979 placed the journal first out of 143 journals in the category "Law". It also ranks first in other ranking systems of law reviews. It is published monthly from November through June, with the November issue dedicated to covering the previous year's term of the Supreme Court of the United States.
Wade Hampton McCree Jr. was an American legal scholar and judge. He was the first African American appointed as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and the second African-American United States Solicitor General in the history of the United States. He joined the faculty of the University of Michigan Law School after leaving government service in 1981, and taught there until the time of his death.
The Supreme Court of Maryland is the highest court of the U.S. state of Maryland. The court, which is composed of one chief justice and six associate justices, meets in the Robert C. Murphy Courts of Appeal Building in the state capital, Annapolis. The term of the Court begins the second Monday of September. The Court is unique among American courts in that the justices wear red robes.
Speculation abounded over potential nominations to the Supreme Court of the United States by President George W. Bush since before his presidency.
The University of Connecticut School of Law is the law school associated with the University of Connecticut and located in Hartford, Connecticut. It is the only public law school in Connecticut and one of only four in New England. As of 2020, it enrolled 488 students.
The district courts of appeal (DCAs) are the intermediate appellate courts of the Florida state court system. There are currently six DCAs:
Jerry Edwin Smith is an American attorney and jurist serving as a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
William Curtis Bryson is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. He also served a 7-year term as a judge on the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, until 2018, and on September 1, 2013, became the presiding judge of that court.
Fisher v. University of Texas, 570 U.S. 297 (2013), also known as Fisher I, is a United States Supreme Court case concerning the affirmative action admissions policy of the University of Texas at Austin. The Supreme Court voided the lower appellate court's ruling in favor of the university and remanded the case, holding that the lower court had not applied the standard of strict scrutiny, articulated in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), to its admissions program. The Court's ruling in Fisher took Grutter and Bakke as given and did not directly revisit the constitutionality of using race as a factor in college admissions.
Jeffrey Vincent Brown is a United States district judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas and a former justice of the Texas Supreme Court. He was appointed to the U.S. District Court by President Donald Trump.
James Wesley Hendrix is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas and former assistant United States attorney for the same district. He presides over the Northern District's Lubbock, Abilene, and San Angelo Divisions, which account for 47 of the Northern District's 100 counties, and span an area larger than Pennsylvania.
Fisher v. University of Texas, 579 U.S. 365 (2016), also known as Fisher II, is a United States Supreme Court case which held that the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit correctly found that the University of Texas at Austin's undergraduate admissions policy survived strict scrutiny, in accordance with Fisher v. University of Texas (2013), which ruled that strict scrutiny should be applied to determine the constitutionality of the University's race-conscious admissions policy.
James Chiun-Yue Ho is a Taiwanese-born American lawyer and jurist serving since 2018 as a U.S. circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. He was appointed by President Donald Trump, becoming the Fifth Circuit's only Asian-American judge and the only judge to be an immigrant.
Andrew Stephen Oldham is a United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and former General Counsel to Texas Governor Greg Abbott.
The Solicitor General of Texas is the top appellate solicitor or lawyer for the U.S. state of Texas. It is an appointed position in the Office of the Texas Attorney General that focuses on the office's major appellate cases. The majority of the cases handled by the solicitor are argued in the United States Supreme Court and the Supreme Court of Texas. However some cases within the solicitor's responsibilities are under the jurisdiction of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the state appellate courts. The solicitor represents the Attorney General of Texas before the Supreme Court of Texas and other appellate courts, as needed. The Office of the Solicitor General writes most of the amicus briefs filed by the Texas attorney general's office.
Lisa Schiavo Blatt is an American lawyer known for her advocacy before the Supreme Court of the United States. As of November 5, 2024, she has argued before the Supreme Court 52 times—the most of any woman in U.S. history. She is a partner at the law firm Williams & Connolly and chairs the firm's Supreme Court and appellate practice. She previously worked as an appellate lawyer for the U.S. government in the Office of the Solicitor General and later chaired the Supreme Court and appellate practice at the law firm Arnold & Porter.
