Managing Out the Federal Appellate Judge

Abstract

Federal judges have managed themselves out of the federal appellate process for ordinary appeals. Managing out refers to a management style where the boss makes the employee’s work so intolerable as to induce her to quit; she’s managed out instead of terminated. Something similar has been happening at the federal appellate courts over the last half century. A flood of ordinary, routine matters brought by (mostly) pro se litigants has spurred a managerial transformation at the federal appellate courts. And that transformation has mostly involved removing the federal judge from the ordinary work of the federal appellate courts.

Keywords: federal appellate courts, U.S. Courts of Appeals, managerial judges, procedural justice, access to justice, unpublished decisions