The Court has jurisdiction to hear and determine native title determination applications and to be responsible for their mediation, to hear and determine revised native title determination applications, compensation applications, claim registration applications, applications to remove agreements from the Register of Indigenous Land Use Agreements and applications about the transfer of records.
A further important area of jurisdiction for the Court derives from the Admiralty Act The Court has concurrent jurisdiction with the Supreme Courts of the states and territories to hear maritime claims under this Act. Ships coming into Australian waters may be arrested for the purpose of providing security for money claimed from ship owners and operators.
If security is not provided, a judge may order the sale of the ship to provide funds to pay the claims. The Court's jurisdiction under the Corporations Act and Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act covers a diversity of matters ranging from the appointment of provisional liquidators and the winding up of companies, to applications for orders in relation to fundraising, corporate management and misconduct by company officers.
The jurisdiction is exercised concurrently with the Supreme Courts of the states and territories. The Court exercises jurisdiction under the Bankruptcy Act It has power to make sequestration bankruptcy orders against persons who have committed acts of bankruptcy and to grant bankruptcy discharges and annulments. The Court's jurisdiction includes matters arising from the administration of bankrupt estates. These cases often raise important public interest issues involving such matters as mergers, misuse of market power, exclusive dealings or false advertising.
Since late , the Court has also had jurisdiction in relation to indictable offences for serious cartel conduct. This jurisdiction falls under the Federal Crime and Related Proceedings NPA together with summary prosecutions and criminal appeals and other related matters. The Court has a substantial and diverse appellate jurisdiction. Attorneys, and the U.
Attorney is the primary prosecutor for the federal government in his or her respective area. There are over district court judges nationwide. Some tasks of the district court are given to federal magistrate judges. Magistrates are appointed by the district court by a majority vote of the judges and serve for a term of eight years if full-time and four years if part-time, but they can be reappointed after completion of their term. In criminal matters, magistrate judges may oversee certain cases, issue search warrants and arrest warrants, conduct initial hearings, set bail, decide certain motions such as a motion to suppress evidence , and other similar actions.
In civil cases, magistrates often handle a variety of issues such as pre-trial motions and discovery. Federal trial courts have also been established for a few subject-specific areas. Each federal district also has a bankruptcy court for those proceedings. Once the federal district court has decided a case, the case can be appealed to a United States court of appeal. There are twelve federal circuits that divide the country into different regions. Cases from the district courts of those states are appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which is headquartered in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Additionally, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals has a nationwide jurisdiction over very specific issues such as patents. Each circuit court has multiple judges, ranging from six on the First Circuit to twenty-nine on the Ninth Circuit. Circuit court judges are appointed for life by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
Appeals to circuit courts are first heard by a panel, consisting of three circuit court judges. En banc opinions tend to carry more weight and are usually decided only after a panel has first heard the case.
Beyond the Federal Circuit, a few courts have been established to deal with appeals on specific subjects such as veterans claims United States Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims and military matters United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces.
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the American judicial system, and has the power to decide appeals on all cases brought in federal court or those brought in state court but dealing with federal law. For example, if a First Amendment freedom of speech case was decided by the highest court of a state usually the state supreme court , the case could be appealed to the federal Supreme Court.
Overall, my hiring process has been better because of this practice, and it has resulted in stronger chambers. Once they are hired, clerks must also have access to resources to report discriminatory or harassing behavior. Voluntary mentorship programs could also be established to pair clerks with former clerks from similar backgrounds.
Such programs could help judicial clerks of all backgrounds to navigate the judicial institution. Like clerkships, prestigious law firms are also highly selective and favor law graduates who attended elite law schools and graduated at the top of their class. But again, as explored in previous sections, the many obstacles that students from traditionally underserved communities face in law school may cause their GPAs to suffer, especially in comparison with their elite peers, who are advantaged by the current system in many ways.
According to the same study, women comprised slightly less than half of law firm associates that year. The same study found that only 1. And women of color comprised just 3. Candidates from underrepresented backgrounds who do get hired at law firms are not always primed for success. Women, people of color, and LGBTQ people have reported being discriminated against, harassed, or passed over for promotions and assignments at law firms.
According to an ABA study, 49 percent of women of color working at law firms have reported being subject to harassment, while 62 percent reported being excluded from networking opportunities critical for career advancement. In comparison, between 2 and 4 percent of white men working at law firms reported experiencing the same issues. Additionally, law firm associates who identify as LGBTQ have reported regularly hearing anti-gay comments in the workplace.
When individuals feel unsupported or even attacked in the workplace, they are more likely to leave their prestigious positions or the law profession altogether. Studies have shown that lawyers of color are more likely to leave their firm jobs than white lawyers. Like judges and clerkships, law firms must make hiring decisions with an eye toward bringing on more women, people of color, people who identify as LGBTQ, and people with disabilities as well as different religious affiliations.
Fortunately, many law firms have implemented the Mansfield Rule, which requires at least 30 percent of firm leadership candidates to be members of historically underrepresented groups.
They must be empowered to make independent assessments of and take meaningful action to address problems within firms related to diverse hiring and retention practices, as well as to ensure that workplace conduct and work distribution are free of discrimination and harassment. Clients are also prioritizing firm diversity. It is also important to improve firm culture in order to increase retention rates among associates and partners from historically underrepresented groups.
Safe workplace and bias trainings must occur regularly, and individuals who make bigoted or offensive comments must face repercussions, regardless of their place on the hierarchical totem pole.
There must also be formal processes for investigating performance evaluations and work distribution patterns that may be tainted by supervisor bias. Firm attorneys belonging to historically underrepresented groups should be paired with mentors who are invested in their success. These mentors may themselves be members of underrepresented groups, but they may also be senior associates and partners that are not from such groups.
In fact, some lawyers of color have acknowledged that being paired with white partners can be crucial for their success, given that they may have more connections with others in the legal field or larger client lists. Aside from clerkships and jobs at prestigious law firms, federal judges are also recruited from state supreme courts and attorneys general AG offices. Unfortunately, diversity is a problem in these areas as well.
A recent report by the Brennan Center for Justice found that judges of color comprise just 15 percent of state supreme court seats nationwide. Nearly half of all states have supreme courts comprised entirely of white judges. The same diversity issues exist for attorneys general. In fact, there are only nine women and 12 people of color currently serving as state attorneys general, comprising only about Addressing diversity problems in these sectors requires diversity-centered decision-making by governors, presidents, and the public, who appoints or elects state supreme court judges and attorneys general.
Addressing the pipeline problem, as explored above, will go a long way toward ensuring that there is a larger pool of judicial candidates from which to choose for the federal bench. But ensuring that future judicial candidates are set up for success in and out of law school is only half the battle. Even if lawyers from different backgrounds play their cards right under the current system—by going to the most prestigious law school, graduating at the top of their class, clerking at the Supreme Court, and then making partner at a top law firm or presiding over a state supreme court—they still face an uphill battle in attaining a federal judgeship.
As explored in Part I of this report, despite their exceptional qualifications, judicial candidates from underrepresented groups are far outnumbered by cis white male judges on the federal courts. Solutions are therefore needed to ensure that candidates from all backgrounds are being nominated by presidential administrations and approved by Congress. As illustrated in previous sections of this report, for much of American history, U. Except for during the administrations of former Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama, judicial nominations of people from underrepresented groups have been few and far between.
Similarly, even when candidates of color, women, and openly LGBTQ candidates have been nominated, Congress has been slow to confirm their appointments. Another explanation is that in nominating and confirming federal judges, presidential administrations and Congress must make various considerations and strategic calculations.
Depending on the political climate at the time, judicial diversity may unfortunately fall by the wayside even under administrations with the best intentions. In nominating judges, presidents must make diversifying the bench a top priority for their administrations.
As discussed previously, President Carter was a leader in this area. President Obama, too, consciously selected judges who represented a variety of backgrounds and experiences. Presidents must emulate the examples set by Carter and Obama to diversify federal courts. Efforts to diversify the federal bench cannot, however, be limited to demographic characteristics. In addition to compiling a group of nominees from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, genders, LGBTQ identities, and religious affiliations, presidents should nominate judges who come from different educational and professional backgrounds.
That the federal judiciary is made up largely of judges who worked in private practice and as prosecutors is problematic since it means that a very small subset of perspectives dominate the judicial system.
There are many lawyers who would make excellent judges that are currently working in the public sector, including as public defenders, nonprofit litigators, and as direct legal service providers.
Although such career paths have historically not been pathways to federal judgeships, they certainly should be. That Obama—who arguably did more to improve representation on the federal bench than any other president—did not appoint people from historically underrepresented groups at rates of even 50 percent is noteworthy. In order to make any real dent in the diversity problem that plagues the current judiciary, the proportion of women and people of color being appointed needs to be much higher, greatly exceeding any 50 percent threshold.
LGBTQ judges, judges with disabilities, and judges belonging to religious minorities should also be appointed at significantly higher rates.
In nominating and confirming judicial appointees, presidential administrations should engage in robust consultation with a variety of groups and communities. Affinity organizations and bar associations, disability rights and justice advocates, and interfaith coalitions and leaders specializing in judicial nominations can provide a wealth of valuable insight on and recommendations for judicial nominees from different backgrounds and experiences.
Like the executive branch, the legislative branch must also make confirming these nominees a matter of utmost importance. The Senate should demand nominees who belong to underrepresented groups and who come from different backgrounds.
It should no longer be a complacent party in confirming more and more white, male, and elitist judges. The Senate has significant power over the judicial confirmation process and, as such, should be more assertive in pushing for greater diversity on the bench. Senators should similarly consult with justice-oriented groups and affinity bar associations when confirming judicial nominees. Such organizations can warn lawmakers about nominees with poor records on issues that disproportionately affect historically underrepresented groups.
Although the ABA does not exercise any formal authority over who gets nominated or appointed to the federal bench, it plays an influential role through issuing ratings on federal judicial nominees. Unfortunately, research suggests that the ABA rating system disproportionately disadvantages judges belonging to historically underrepresented groups. For instance, female judges and judges belonging to racial or ethnic minorities are less likely than their male and white counterparts to be highly rated by the ABA, even though there is zero evidence that white or male judges are more qualified than those belonging to underrepresented groups.
The recommendations listed above are steps that can be taken to ensure that, going forward, judicial vacancies are filled by judges who belong to historically underrepresented groups and have a variety of experiences. There, of course, remains the question of what to do about the judges already serving on the federal bench. As described in previous sections of this report, judges—like everyone else—have implicit biases regarding race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and so on.
Although it is impossible to eliminate judicial bias in its entirety, steps can be taken to mitigate its effect. For example, federal judges—including Supreme Court justices—along with all senior court employees and law clerks, should be required to undergo implicit bias training on an annual basis. Trainings could be carried out by implicit bias specialists and include presentations from affected litigants as well as organizations and bar associations representing various groups and communities, specifically those that are historically underrepresented.
Implicit bias training could be mandated by the Federal Judicial Center or required by Congress. All federal judges are already required by law to complete annual financial disclosures in the interests of transparency and accountability.
Another way to mitigate bias is for state bars to require trainings as part of their Continuing Legal Education curriculum, as is the case in Minnesota. For instance, organizations engaged in court monitoring practices will often send trained volunteers to monitor certain classes of court cases for judicial bias against parties and attorneys. These organizations can then provide feedback to judges on their performances and offer judicial bias trainings to address the problem.
The federal judiciary needs judges with a wealth of different and unique experiences, who understand how their rulings can affect people from underrepresented groups and those from all backgrounds. Improving the diversity of the federal judiciary would signal both to the public and to parties that have business before the courts that it is a fair and equitable institution. It would also ensure a more even-handed justice system and signal to everyone that a critical part of U.
Indeed, because federal judges serve for life, it will take years—if not decades—for the United States to have a federal judiciary that more closely mirrors the demographics of the country. Getting there requires a strong commitment to taking affirmative steps to improve the judicial pipeline and selection process in order to ensure that judicial candidates represent a variety of backgrounds and experiences.
This commitment and responsibility must be shared by every person and entity who has a hand in the making of federal judges; this includes presidents, senators, sitting judges, law schools, law firms, justice-minded organizations, bar associations, and American voters.
The authors would like to thank Carlie Malone and Nina Reddy for their exceptional research on this report. The demographic characteristics of current and past appointed judges were retrieved from the Federal Judicial Center FJC , which provides information on race, ethnicity, and gender.
The data were then broken out to provide diversity characteristics for all sitting judges, sitting judges by circuit, judges appointed by Trump, and judges appointed by each president dating back to FDR. In order to compare judicial diversity with population diversity in the circuits, the authors collected population demographic information from the U. Census Bureau for each state and U. This information was then aggregated to provide a representative picture of demographics for the populations covered by each federal circuit court.
Nance and Paul E. James L. For instance, one study on women judges found that they issue harsher sentences for certain offenses. See Ibid. Kristine L. Supreme Court, and state appellate courts.
Smith Jr. For an overview of research on the impact that religious affiliation has on judging, see Jeffrey J. Rachlinski and Andrew J. See, generally, Steven A. Jonathan P. Cox and Thomas J. The authors examined which judges still serving on the federal bench would meet the senior status qualification requirements under 28 U.
Street Law Inc. Sarah E. I had no idea. I made my own outlines from scratch, and they were horrible. By the time I realized I had to be plugged in with the white students to get the good outlines, it was already the end of my second year.
Law Firms. See Mary L. Danielle Root. Maggie Jo Buchanan. Peter Gordon Director, Government Affairs. In this article. InProgress Stay updated on our work on the most pressing issues of our time. See also. May 8, Danielle Root , Sam Berger. Examining the Demographic Compositions of U. Circuit and District Courts. Feb 13, the Democracy and Government Reform Team. Part II: Diversity on the federal bench matters. Better descriptive and substantive representation on the bench The presence of a diverse group of federal judges improves both the descriptive and substantive representation of underrepresented groups on the federal bench.
District Court for the Northern District of California[ Edward M. Better, fairer decisions Judges are human beings who hold biases and prejudices like everyone else. Having a group of judges from a variety of backgrounds, including underserved or historically underrepresented communities, has a positive impact on the decision-making processes of federal judicial panels and the Supreme Court. Address the pipeline problem The lack of diversity within the federal judiciary cannot be remedied without addressing the judicial pipeline problem.
As described in a report by the Minority Corporate Counsel Association on sexual minority attorneys: Nongay people announce their sexual orientation whenever they mention a date, a spouse, or a child. Get young people from underrepresented groups interested in judgeships In order to bring individuals from all different backgrounds into the judicial pipeline, it is necessary to get young people of different races and ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and religions excited about pursuing a career in law.
Make the law school admission process fairer and more accessible Before becoming a federal judge, one must be admitted to and attend law school. Ensure that law school environments are inclusive and welcoming Once in law school, students may experience an unwelcoming environment that can at times be downright hostile. Ensure that law students have equal access to professional opportunities The many challenges that underrepresented students face in law school can prevent them from obtaining prestigious judicial clerkships and positions at distinguished law firms, both of which have traditionally been considered necessary for becoming a federal judge.
Prioritize diversity in legal sectors that serve as stepping stones for judgeships As described in previous sections of this report, working in certain sectors of the legal field—for example, serving as a judicial clerk, working at a top law firm, presiding as a state or local judge, or serving as a state attorney general or U.
Judicial clerkships Clerkship positions are not often filled by candidates from historically underrepresented groups. Law firms Like clerkships, prestigious law firms are also highly selective and favor law graduates who attended elite law schools and graduated at the top of their class.
Prioritizing judicial diversity in the nomination and appointment process Addressing the pipeline problem, as explored above, will go a long way toward ensuring that there is a larger pool of judicial candidates from which to choose for the federal bench.
The White House and Congress must place a premium on judicial diversity As illustrated in previous sections of this report, for much of American history, U.
0コメント