Frank Hoover Easterbrook (born 1948) is Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. He has been Chief Judge since November 2006, and has been a judge on the court since 1985. Easterbrook is noted for his use of economic analysis of law, his legalist approach to judicial interpretation, for his clear writing style, and for being one of the most prolific judges of his generation. As one of the most prolific appellate judges in America^[1], Easterbrook is a potential nominee to the Supreme Court, though he has not yet been officially nominated or mentioned by the Bush adminstration. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Court of Appeals is the title of certain appellate courts in various jurisdictions. ... The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the following United States district courts: Central, Northern, and Southern Districts of Illinois Northern and Southern Districts of Indiana Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin The court is based at the Dirksen... Look up November in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Law and economics, or economic analysis of law, is the term usually applied to an approach to legal theory that incorporates methods and ideas borrowed from the discipline of economics. ... Legalism has several meanings. ...

Early career

Chief Judge Easterbrook was born in Buffalo, New York. His undergraduate education was at Swarthmore College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received his degree with high honors. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Chicago Law School (where he was an editor of the law review and a member of the Order of the Coif) in 1973, and then clerked for Judge Levin Hicks Campbell on the First Circuit. In 1974, along with Danny Boggs and Robert Reich, he joined the Solicitor General's office as an Assistant to the Solicitor General, and was promoted in 1978 to Deputy Solicitor General for the Justice Department. The solicitor general at the time was Robert Bork, and Easterbrook has wryly reminisced that when he joined the Solicitor General's office, "The Washington Post noted that around the same time the SG's Office had hired three lawyers either fresh from clerkships or lacking the customary appellate experience. None of us had clerked on the Supreme Court. The Post concluded that good lawyers were no longer willing to work for the SG and attributed this to Bork's role in firing Archibald Cox as Watergate special prosecutor. The paper thought that dark days lay ahead for the Office with a second-rate staff. The three bottom-of-the-barrel selections were Robert Reich (later Secretary of Labor in the Clinton Administration), Danny Boggs (now Chief Judge of the Sixth Circuit), and me."^[2] Nickname: City of Good Neighbors, Queen City, City of Light Location of Buffalo in New York State County Erie County Mayor Byron Brown Area    - City 136. ... Official language(s) English de facto Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  Ranked 27th  - Total 54,520 sq mi (141,205 km²)  - Width 285 miles (455 km)  - Length 330 miles (530 km)  - % water 13. ... Swarthmore College is a private liberal arts college in the United States with an enrollment of about 1450 students. ... The Phi Beta Kappa Society is an honor society which considers its mission to be fostering and recognizing excellence in undergraduate liberal arts and sciences. ... Juris Doctor (J.D.) is a first degree in law offered by universities in a number of countries, most notably the United States. ... The University of Chicago Law School is a part of the University of Chicago. ... A law review is a scholarly journal focusing on legal issues, normally published by an organization of students at a law school or through a bar association. ... The Order of the Coif is an honorary society for law students. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... The United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit is a federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the following United States District Courts: District of Maine District of Massachusetts District of New Hampshire District of Puerto Rico District of Rhode Island The court is based at the John Joseph... Danny Julian Boggs (born in Havana, Cuba, October 23, 1944) is the Chief Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. ... Robert Bernard Reich (born June 24, 1946) was the twenty-second United States Secretary of Labor, serving under President Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997. ... The United States Solicitor General is the individual tasked with arguing for the United States Government in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, when the government is party to a case. ... Robert Bork Robert Heron Bork (born March 1, 1927 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is a conservative American legal scholar who advocates the judicial philosophy of originalism. ...

Easterbrook joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School in 1978 (and is still a senior lecturer there today), and was a principal at Lexecon from 1980 until his judicial appointment. Easterbrook argued twenty cases before the Supreme Court while in the Solicitor General's office and in private practice, including several landmark antitrust cases. The University of Chicago Law School is a part of the University of Chicago. ... Antitrust laws, or competition laws, are laws which prohibit anti-competitive behavior and unfair business practices. ...

Nomination and judicial career

Chief Judge Easterbrook was nominated to the court by Ronald Reagan in August 1984 to a new seat created by 98 Stat. 333, 346; the U.S. Senate did not act on his nomination that year, and he was re-nominated in Reagan's second term on February 25, 1985. He was confirmed by the Senate on April 3, 1985, and received his commission the next day. The American Bar Association gave Easterbrook a low "qualified/not qualified" rating, presumably due to his youth and relative inexperience. In 2001, this rating was claimed by the George W. Bush administration as evidence of liberal bias in the ABA in its historic announcement that it would no longer confer with the ABA in selecting judicial nominees. Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was the 40th President of the United States (1981–1989) and the 33rd Governor of California (1967–1975). ... 1984 (MCMLXXXIV) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Seal of the U.S. Senate The United States Senate is one of the two chambers of the United States Congress, the other being the House of Representatives. ... February 25 is the 56th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... April 3 is the 93rd day of the year (94th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 272 days remaining. ... 1985 (MCMLXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... American Bar Associations Washington, DC office The American Bar Association (ABA) is a voluntary bar association of lawyers which is not specific to any jurisdiction in the United States. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ... George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States, inaugurated on January 20, 2001. ...

Among Chief Judge Easterbrook's most prominent opinions are:

• American Booksellers Ass'n v. Hudnut^[3]
• Kirchoff v. Flynn^[4]
• In re Erickson^[5]
• In re Sinclair^[6]
• United States v. Van Fossan^[7]
• Miller v. South Bend^[8]
• United States v. Marshall^[9]

Easterbrook attempts to make difficult legal issues more readily understandable through incisive and vivid writing. As a young judge in one of his early opinions, Kirchoff v. Flynn, 786 F.2d 320 (CA7 1986), a lawsuit over an arrest for feeding pigeons in a park, Easterbrook used such language as "trundled to the squadrol" to describe an arrest; and states of the pigeon-feeder that she "will never be confused with the 30th Earl of Mar, whose hobby was kicking pigeons." He describes a controversy over whether a police officer, or the plaintiff's own bird, had attacked the plaintiff thusly: "[Plaintiff] says that he was clobbered by a pair of handcuffs; [the officer] maintains that the [plaintiffs]' red macaw drew the blood when it landed on [plaintiff]'s head during the fracas and started pecking." In a footnote Easterbrook added "Predatory birds rarely attack large animals whose eyes they can see, 11 Harv.Med. School Health Letter 8 (Feb.1986), and perhaps William's eyes got distracted, to his macaw's glee." This serves as an example of Easterbrook's sophisticated deftness with language and breadth of knowledge.

In his worst moments, however, he has sometimes been described as caustic, arrogant, and rude. He is particularly demanding during oral argument. In Schlessinger v. Salimes (1996)^[10], for example, he characterized the plaintiff's arguments as "goofy" and "nutty" before issuing a rule to show cause why the appellant and lawyer should not be sanctioned for frivolous appeal. His demeanor has won him enemies in the bar. In 1994, the Chicago Council of Lawyers published an "evaluation" of the Seventh Circuit^[11] that evaluated all the judges and the court's procedures in general, but notably focused extensively on only two: Easterbrook and then-chief judge Richard Posner. The evaluation of Easterbrook contains an unusual number of grievances; and the Council did not specify authorship, so the criticism is anonymous. In a section devoted to Easterbrook's judicial demeanor^[12], the report claims he "has consistently displayed a temperament that is improper for a Circuit Judge. While Judge Easterbrook has many good qualities, there is a widespread belief that he is arrogant and intolerant with those who do not match his own intellectual level. This problem seriously interferes with the performance of his duties." The report continued to state Easterbrook "has been resoundingly and repeatedly criticized as being extremely rude to attorneys at oral argument" and that "some attorneys" said that due to the judge's demeanor they and their clients did not feel they got a fair hearing. The Council pointed to another opinion, Kale v. Obuchowski^[13], which derided a lawyer's argument as "pettifoggery" and concluded "This is a frivolous, doomed and sanctionable appeal." The Council argued that even if the lawyer's conduct was sanctionable "the language chosen does not enhance the administration of justice."

However, this review by the Council was never repeated, lending partial support to the defenders of Easterbrook and Posner that the report was an opportunity for anonymous venting by lawyers who were unhappy with the results of Seventh Circuit decisions, in no small part thanks to the decisions of Reagan appointees Easterbrook and Posner. Posner has recently commented about the report, "You have here some anonymous people who are talking to the Chicago Council of Lawyers. How much credence should we put on these people?" he says. "They can be sore losers. They can be crybabies."^[14]

Academic work

Easterbrook's academic work focuses on corporate law, particularly the 1991 book The Economic Structure of Corporate Law, which he co-authored with Daniel Fischel. Easterbrook's article The Proper Role of a Target's Management in Responding to a Tender Offer, 94 Harv. L. Rev. 1161 (1981) (also co-authored with Fischel) is the most heavily cited corporate law article in legal scholarship. Easterbrook has also written articles on antitrust law and judicial interpretation, including Abstraction and Authority, 59 U. Chi. L. Rev. 349 (1992); Statutes' Domains, 50 U. Chi. L. Rev. 533 (1983); and Textualism and the Dead Hand, 66 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1119 (1998). Corporations law or corporate law is the law concerning the creation and regulation of corporations. ... There are several theories as to how judges ought to interpret legal sources (legislation, case law and constitutional provisions). ...

Miscellaneous

• A 2004 poll by Legal Affairs magazine named Easterbrook one of the top twenty legal thinkers in the U.S.

• Easterbrook is the second-most cited appellate judge in the U.S.^[1]

• Frank Easterbrook is the brother of author Gregg Easterbrook and law school classmate of judge and former Supreme Court nominee Douglas H. Ginsburg.

• In an opinion, he joked that Space: 1999 episodes were cruel and unusual punishment.

• He argues that cyberlaw is not a separate and distinct legal discipline, comparing it to the "law of the horse."^[15]

Gregg Easterbrook is an American writer who is a senior editor of The New Republic. ... Douglas H. Ginsburg Douglas Howard Ginsburg (born May 25, 1946) is the Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. ... Left to right: Barbara Bain, Catherine Schell and Martin Landau from Space:1999s second season. ... Left to right: Barbara Bain, Catherine Schell and Martin Landau from Space:1999s second season. ... The statement that the government shall not inflict cruel and unusual punishment for crimes is found in the English Bill of Rights signed in 1689 by William of Orange and Queen Mary II who were then the joint rulers of England following the Glorious Revolution of 1688. ... Cyber law encompasses a wide variety of political and legal issues related to the Internet and other communications technology, including intellectual property, privacy, freedom of expression, and jurisdiction. ...

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Who would win a tournament of judges? - Stephen Choi, 11/10/03
2. ^ 20 Questions for Circuit Judge Frank H. Easterbrook of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit - How Appealing, 8/2/04
3. ^ American Booksellers Ass'n v. Hudnut, 771 F.2d 323 (7th Cir. 1985), affirmed summarily, 475 U.S. 1001 (1986)
4. ^ Kirchoff v. Flynn, 786 F.2d 320 (7th Cir. 1986)
5. ^ In re Erickson, 815 F.2d 1090 (7th Cir. 1987)
6. ^ In re Sinclair, 870 F.2d 1340 (7th Cir. 1989)
7. ^ United States v. Van Fossan, 899 F.2d 636 (7th Cir. 1990)
8. ^ Miller v. South Bend, 904 F.2d 1081 (7th Cir. 1990) (en banc) (dissenting), reversed, 501 U.S. 560 (1991)
9. ^ United States v. Marshall, 908 F.2d 1312 (7th Cir. 1990) (en banc), affirmed under the name Chapman v. United States, 500 U.S. 453 (1991)
10. ^ Schlessinger v. Salimes, 100 F.3d 519 (7th Cir. 1996)
11. ^ Evaluation of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit - Chicago Council of Lawyers
12. ^ Judge Easterbrook's Judicial Demeanor
13. ^ Kale v. Obuchowski, 985 F.2d 360 (7th Cir. 1993)
14. ^ Judging Richard - The Law School University of Chicago News 11/10/05
15. ^ Cyberspace and the Law of the Horse - Frank Easterbrook, 1996

External links

• University of Chicago faculty page
• Howard Bashman interview with Judge Easterbrook