Just days after President-elect Donald Trump won the election, blue state attorneys general said they are already strategizing on how to fight the incoming administration’s policies—including where to file their lawsuits.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta told Politico last week that his lawyers already "have gone down to the detail of what court do we file in." And other Democratic attorneys general, including in New York, Massachusetts and Maryland, issued similar statements about plans to oppose Trump policies in court.
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Shifting Ninth Circuit

But will the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit—widely considered the country’s most liberal federal appeals court and one Trump has directly criticized—return to being at the center of legal battles over Trump's policies, as was the case in his first term? Or, might lawyers look elsewhere?

Court watchers say they still expect the Ninth Circuit to be the site of plenty of legal action, but more fights could play out elsewhere this time around, especially given how Trump’s conservative appointees chipped away at the circuit’s liberal majority. Trump added 10 judges to the Ninth Circuit, with 13 of the court’s 29 active judges now appointed by Republican presidents and 16 by Democrats.

On top of that, the court has a “limited en banc” process that’s different from other courts. Instead of all active judges hearing en banc cases, the Ninth Circuit picks 10 active judges randomly plus the court’s chief judge to hear appeals en banc.