Law360 has Judge Paez Gives Biden 3rd Opening on 9th Circuit, which notes that his going senior “gives Biden a third opening on the sprawling appeals court and a 14th appellate vacancy overall.” (There are three vacancies in the 9th and 2d Circuits; two in the 10th and D.C. Circuits, and one in the 1st, 4th, 7th, and Fed. Circuits.)

  • Appellate experts previously told Law360 that likely contenders for a California seat on the Ninth Circuit include U.S. District Judges Lucy H. Koh and Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the Northern District of California, state Judge Holly A. Thomas and California Supreme Court Justices Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar, Leondra R. Kruger and Goodwin H. Liu.
  • Non-judges suggested as possible candidates included Davina T. Chen, a sentencing resource counsel for federal public defenders nationwide, and Brian E. Nelson, a former general counsel to Vice President Kamala Harris when she was California’s attorney general, who is now chief legal officer for LA 2028, the organizing committee for the upcoming Olympic games.
Law360 also has Font Considerations To Give Your Legal Briefs An Edge, in which Jason Steed writes:
  • Good examples of legible serif fonts that come preinstalled in Microsoft Word — or that are otherwise generally available for free — include Century, Century Schoolbook, Bell, Book Antiqua, Bookman, Caslon, Georgia, Miller, Palatino and Sabon.
  • Equity is also a nice, newer font that has become somewhat popular here in Texas, but you’ll have to pay a licensing fee if you want to use it. And yes, is also legible and works just fine, but it has been the default font in legal writing for a long time, so it carries the risk of appearing accidental, as though you didn’t give any thought to the font you were using.
  • five fonts — Century, Book Antiqua, Bookman, Equity and Palatino — are all safe bets in most of the federal appellate courts.
  • Note that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit notoriously still uses Courier in its opinions — but do not take this as a model of good practice. Studies show that monospaced fonts like Courier are significantly harder to read. And you don’t want to do anything that makes your brief harder to read.
  • you really can’t go wrong using Century Schoolbook in all your briefing — unless a local rule disallows it.
The article’s conclusion accords with CRC 8.74(b)(1)–which the article does not cite–that expressly states that “Century Schoolbook is preferred” for all California appellate courts.