Happy Friday from Brad and Avalon here at Law.com's Bench Report. You probably saw former federal appeals court Judge J. Michael Luttig's testimony in a June hearing for the Jan. 6 committee, well it turns out he's done a lot more in Washington than just testify before congress. Judge Luttig took time out of a recent holiday to speak with the NLJ about the behind the scenes work he's done with proposed amendments to the Electoral Count Act. 

Plus, we take a look at the small percentage of active federal appeals court judges who have backgrounds in labor law or in other areas of economic justice–a number that may dwindle as some prepare to take senior status. Please reach out to us via [email protected] and [email protected]. Follow us on Twitter: @AvalonZoppo and @BradKutner.

Michael Luttig, former Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals judge, now a consultant for Coca Cola. April 4, 2021. Courtesy photo

Judge Luttig: Amending the Electoral Count Act is the 'sine qua non' for preventing another Jan. 6

Former Judge J. Michael Luttig was working behind the scenes to help improve the nation's federal electoral process long before his testimony at the Jan. 6 committee hearing back in June.

A respected conservative jurist who served in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit for 15 years, I spoke with Luttig Wednesday where he said he'd actually been speaking with elected officials since March to craft language that would stop anything like the legal assault on the presidential election process we saw after the 2020 election.