Howard J Bashman

December 04, 2006 | The Legal Intelligencer

One regularly repeated refrain in the battle over judicial confirmations to U.S. Courts of Appeals is that those judges have the ability to implement their personal views of what the law should be, and that those views should therefore be ascertained and

By Howard J. Bashman

5 minute read

October 19, 2009 | The Legal Intelligencer

The adversarial system of justice practiced in the United States presumes that each of the opposing parties in a lawsuit will advocate for a ruling in its favor under the facts and applicable law, and an impartial group of jurors -- or a judge or group of judges -- will decide what the result should be based on those adversarial presentations.

By Howard J. Bashman

5 minute read

August 20, 2007 | The Legal Intelligencer

Overall, I find that federal appellate courts do a fine job of providing online access to their precedential and non-precedential rulings, but there's one respect in which many of these courts are lacking.

By Howard J. Bashman

3 minute read

May 19, 2008 | The Legal Intelligencer

When confronted with an adverse ruling of the Superior Court, it may come as some consolation to the appellate advocate that the Superior Court has chosen to issue the decision as an unreported, non-precedential opinion. Indeed, the Superior Court issues

By Howard J. Bashman

6 minute read

August 14, 2006 | The Legal Intelligencer

Given the continued proliferation of law-related weblogs, including blogs written by professors and attorneys with expertise in various substantive areas of the law, one frequently finds on the Internet a robust and insightful discussion of cases pending

By Howard J. Bashman

5 minute read

April 10, 2006 | Connecticut Law Tribune

The federal appellate courts are divided over an issue that rarely receives any attention: Whether lawyers who will argue an appeal should receive advance notice of which three judges have been assigned to the oral argument panel.

By HOWARD J. BASHMAN

3 minute read

October 15, 2007 | The Legal Intelligencer

An unusual and intriguing example of a failure of interpersonal relations between a trial court judge and an appellate court in California recently captured the attention of reporters who cover the courts. In December 2006, a three-judge panel of Californ

By Howard J. Bashman

5 minute read

March 24, 2008 | The Legal Intelligencer

As someone who blogs about, and offers commentary about, appellate court rulings, I appreciate the modern trend of appellate courts' issuing written opinions setting forth judges' reasons for reaching their announced outcome. Yet, as an attorney who regul

By Howard J. Bashman

4 minute read

September 17, 2007 | The Legal Intelligencer

August 2007 will be noted as one of the worst months in the history of Pennsylvania's state judicial system. During that month, as this newspaper has thoroughly reported, a commissioned judge serving on the Superior Court of Pennsylvania was indicted on f

By Howard J. Bashman

5 minute read

May 05, 2008 | The Legal Intelligencer

What has happened in the trial court will, in almost every case, determine what happens on appeal. Thus, cases that justify having an experienced appellate advocate working on the appeal may also benefit significantly from having that same experienced app

By Howard J. Bashman

5 minute read