FEDERAL JUDGES REVEALED

Oxford University Press, 2009

The power and influence of the federal judiciary has been widely discussed and understood. And while there have been a fair number of institutional studies—studies of individual district courts or courts of appeal—there have been very few studies of the judiciary that emphasize the judges themselves. Federal Judges Revealed considers approximately one hundred oral histories of Article Three judges, extracting the most important information, and organizing it around a series of presented topics such as “How judges write their opinions” and “What judges believe make a good lawyer.

PRAISE and REVIEWS

“This book is brilliantly conceived and executed with intellectual aplomb. To use the oral histories of federal judges to tell their stories and to describe how they perform their judicial responsibilities—in their own words—is clever and revealing. It brought back the acolyte’s privileged sense of serving behind the curtain from my own clerkship days. This book will find a readership among scholars, students, and anyone who wants to understand how the lower federal courts really work. It might be assigned reading in an advanced law school course or a graduate course in history or political science. It will become a ready reference for those of us who study and write about the federal courts.”
–Thomas E. Baker, Florida International University

Federal Judges Revealed offers a captivating look inside the personal and professional lives of judges as well as insight into the workings of the federal judicial system as a whole. Domnarski had done the legal community a service by collecting this information and organizing it into a cohesive and readable whole.”
–Emily Judge, The Federal Lawyer

Federal Judges Revealed stands as a valuable addition to the literature on judges and judging. It provides a useful introduction to, and overview of, a previously overlooked resource for studying how a broad range of judges understand their role.”
–Chad M. Oldfather, Associate Professor, Marquette University Law School, George Washington University Law Review