Circuit Judge, United States Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit

My name is James Graves. I'm a Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the fifth circuit. It's important that, I think, for people to understand that we are typically not in court very often. When I say not in court, it's a very small percentage of our cases that we hear oral argument. And when we hear oral argument, of course, that's just the lawyers appearing before us arguing the cases based on briefs that they've written, issues that they contend were wrongly decided in the court below. So most of my job is reading and writing. Reading briefs. Reading the records from what happened in the lower courts and then writing opinions in those cases. We'll get the briefs, maybe, six weeks or so before the sitting and so we begin reading the briefs. The clerks will prepare bench memos in connection with the cases. I typically sit with each one of my clerks individually and we go over the cases one by one. So there, there's a month or so of work leading up to that week of oral argument. Lawyers come in, they argue the cases, usually it's 20 minutes per side for oral argument, and then post oral argument, the judges will meet, conference the cases, talk about the case among the three judges 'cause we sit in three judge panels. Opinions are written and you're trying to get those right. You're trying to see where they're not getting, you know, who agrees with what, did you put any opinion you've typically taken a preliminary vote and then ultimately an opinion comes out of that. But again, that's a small percentage of the cases. So a number of the cases are handled on a summary calendar where there is no oral argument. Sometimes it's a summary disposition. Other times it's a little more involved 'cause there are some that you can clearly and kind of similarly dismiss. Others take more scrutiny, more involvement, more research, but you can still dispose of on a summary calendar and then, a smaller percentage ends up on the oral argument calendar. Often times, there are issues which are pretty nuanced. There can be case log going this way. Case log going the other way. And so you're reading that. You're saying, well this case seems to suggest this outcome, this case seems to suggest the opposite outcome, and so you're reviewing all of that and trying to get it right under the law and under your determination about what law plays out these particular facts and then what outcome there should be based on the application of that law to these facts.