Federal Judiciary

Judge Ward Sits on Federal Circuit Panel

By Michael Smith

As Dennis Crouch noted yesterday on Patently-O, Judge T. John Ward of the Eastern District sat on a Federal Circuit panel by invitation yesterday, filling out a panel with judges Newman and Gajarsa.  They heard three patent cases, Hyatt v. Dudas (waiver of arguments before the BPAI); Atlanta Pharma v. Teva (appeal from denial of preliminary injunction to stop teva from selling a generic version of the ulcer med Protonix); and D Beam v. Roller Derby.
This actually isn't the first time Judge Ward has sat as an appellate judge.  The Fifth Circuit has had such a program for some time, and Judge Ward actually authored two Fifth Circuit panel opinions in 2000, In re Complaint of John E. Graham & Sons, 210 F.3d 333, 2000 A.M.C. 1770, 150 Oil & Gas Rep. 528 (5th Cir. 2000) and   State Farm Fire & Cas. Ins. Co. v. Keegan, 209 F.3d 767 (5th Cir. 2000).  In fact Judge Ron Clark of Beaumont authored two in the past two weeks, in Motient Corp. v. Dondero, --- F.3d ----, 2008 WL 2174065 (5th Cir. May 27, 2008) and U.S. v. Igbinosun, --- F.3d ----, 2008 WL 2057895 (5th Cir. May 15, 2008).  Judge Leonard Davis of Tyler authored Bocanegra v. Vicmar Services, Inc., 320 F.3d 581, 60 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 804 (5th Cir. 2003), and of course as a justice of the Tyler court of appeals before taking the federal bench he did a bit of writing there as well. 
Sitting on a Fifth Circuit panel gives district judges some insight into what appellate judges do, and hopefully vice versa.  It also gives the judges' law clerks invaluable experience in seeing how appellate courts work, including working on bench briefs for panels (that and a few days in New Orleans!)  I was fortunate that the judge I clerked for, the late Sam B. Hall, Jr. of the Eastern District sat on an appellate panel in New Orleans while I was working for him (with Judges Carolyn King and Emilio Garza) and even authored one of the panel's opinions, U.S. v. Dula, 989 F.2d 772, 37 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1302 (5th Cir. 1993). I can't speak for him, but it was a great experience for his law clerks - the government employee room rate at the Royal Sonesta was insanely low and Kay Lynn and I did our best to eat our way through the rest of our per diem at Brennan's.  At the time the per diem for law clerks on our trips to Texarkana was $65, which more than covered covered the best room you could buy at the Holiday Inn Holidome plus two meals at the Dixie Diner.  New Orleans was a little under $200 a day, and with the hotel running only $95 or so, we had plenty of ammunition for some good meals!

Full post as published by Eastern District of Texas Federal Court Practice on June 04, 2008 (boomark / email).