IJA's New Appellate Judges Seminar opens with address by solicitor general

The Dwight D. Opperman Institute of Judicial Administration (IJA) recently concluded its 53rd annual New Appellate Judges Seminar. Designed for judges with no more than four years of experience on federal courts of appeal, state supreme courts, and state intermediate courts of appeal, the IJA Seminars have been conducted every year since 1959 and have been attended by appellate judges from virtually every state and federal appeals court.

This year’s seminar opened with an address by U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr., who spoke about important decisions from the most recently concluded Supreme Court term. At total of 37 judges enrolled in the seminar, including four federal court judges, eight from state supreme courts, and two from the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. The program, done in cooperation with the Federal Judicial Center, was run by Oscar Chase, Russell D. Niles Professor of Law, Samuel Estreicher, Dwight D. Opperman Professor of Law, and Troy McKenzie, associate professor of law. Chase and Estreicher are faculty co-directors of the IJA.

“If there was a hot issue, it was the increasing pressure on the courts and the judges from very crowded dockets and the increasing financial pressure on state judicial systems,” says IJA Executive Director Torrey Whitman.

“I have served as a trial judge for 14 years,” one attendee wrote in an evaluation at the conclusion of the seminar. “As a result, I have attended numerous educational seminars. This program -- by far -- is the best and most practical of all of the programs that I have attended.”

Posted on August 7, 2012