The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is authorized for 29 judges. As of last week, it is finally full. Of those, eight were appointed by Trump, and seven by Obama, or slightly more than half. Rounding out the rest, five were appointed by George Bush, and nine by Bill Clinton – so 13 republicans and 16 democrats. For completeness, there are also 18 “senior status judges,” who take a reduced load of cases. The senior status judges don’t vote on en banc petitions. The 9th Circuit had 10,500 new case filings in 2018.
I was visiting with a couple non-bankruptcy lawyer friends who are almost as old as me, 120 years of experience at the table. I mentioned that debts go away in bankruptcy, liens don’t. Huh? You don’t owe the car debt anymore but if you don’t pay it they can take the car. One said “bizarre”! If it’s bizarre to experienced lawyers, I can understand a little better why it makes no sense to our consumer clients.
Desiree Causey is having the trip of a lifetime. She and her husband started in Rome – seems like a few weeks ago. Then to Greece, Israel, Palestine, Egypt to see the pyramids, Jordan. I see her posts on facebook everyday.
It’s really annoying to me that the two California senators are holding up confirmation of a badly needed Central District judge. I’m a lifelong Democrat so it’s not politics to me. But according to an article in the Daily Journal today – 11/22/2019 – the candidate Jeremy Rosen is clearly qualified and has significant “support among ideologically-diverse colleagues” but our senators are withholding approval “effectively vetoing Rosen’s candidacy, at least for now.”
By the way, November 22 is the darkest day of my life. I was a freshman at Serra High School in Gardena in 1963 when JFK was shot down. They announced it on the school intercom. I still rarely watch the documentaries about that day.