Fordham Law Professor Bruce Green is quoted in a Washington Post article discussing a new policy from the federal judiciary’s administrative arm aimed at curbing litigants who seek to file lawsuits before specific judges.
Bruce Green, a professor at Fordham Law School, welcomed the amended policy. “I think that it’s deeply problematic to have a party be able to choose the single judge that they want to preside in the case,” he said. “Adopting a policy that makes that more difficult is a good thing. There’s a reason why courts, in general, have the practice of randomly assigning cases within the court, and this will promote that practice.”
Green said single-judge divisions made geographical sense in some ways when judicial districts are very rural. But, he said, judges can still drive long distances to hear cases in different courthouses when necessary, and also have the option of holding hearings online. “The justification for having a single-judge division may not be that compelling anymore, if it ever was,” he said.
Prof. Green is also quoted in a Bloomberg Law article on the same topic, mentioning how little he expects this policy will impact litigants.
Bruce Green, a professor at Fordham Law School who writes about legal ethics, said that he’s unsure of how a litigant could shape a challenge to a federal statute without triggering the random assignment rules.
For now, Green said the new policy takes away “one tiny little advantage” for litigants.
“There will be plenty of strategic decisions to make beyond this,” he said.
Read “U.S. courts require random judge assignments to avoid ‘judge shopping’” in The Washington Post.
Read “Federal Courts Aim to Curb Judge Shopping With New Policy (3)” in Bloomberg Law.