Judge McKee announced that he is taking senior status. The effective date of that action is to be determined. Judge McKee’s move to senior status will allow President Biden to nominate someone to fill a seat on the Third Circuit. That will be the first nomination to the Third Circuit that President Biden will have had the chance to make. Judge McKee is from Pennsylvania. So it is likely that his successor will also come from the Keystone State. We will...

In re D.L.B., ___ N.J. Super. ___ (App. Div. 2021); Valarezo-Tirado v. Attorney General of the United States of America, ___ F.4th ___ (3d Cir. 2021). It is a fundamental rule that courts must provide findings and reasons for their decisions. Litigants deserve to know why they won or lost, and reviewing courts (if cases go on appeal) need to know what decision they are reviewing. In the last two days, these two cases, one from the Appellate Division and one from the Third Circuit, re-emphasized the importance of findings and reasons for decision. In re D.L.B. was a case under New...

United States v. Brace, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 17482 (3d Cir. June 11, 2021). Every so often, attorney conduct is so egregiously bad that it results in a published opinion, and a lesson to other attorneys. This opinion by Judge Bibas is one of those. This was a suit against defendants for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act by, among other things, digging up dirt, rocks, and other material and dumping it back into defendants’ wetlands property without a permit. In defending the case, defense counsel did just about every wrong thing that one can do. The result was that the District...