This sophisticated but easy to understand exposition of the standards of review offers an invaluable resource for law students, law clerks, and practitioners. Decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals invariably are shaped by the applicable standards of review. Filling a huge gap in the literature, Standards of Review masterfully explains the standards controlling appellate review of district court decisions and agency actions. Leading academics have described the text as a superb treatment, clear and comprehensive, of a crucial aspect of every appellate case, that makes accessible even the most complex doctrines of review.

This book is designed to provide guidance to the law student or litigator as to the applicable rules--and the inter-relationship among those rules--for all of the stages of a federal civil lawsuit. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure are not sufficiently organized or cross-referenced to allow law students or litigators to easily understand the relationships among the rules, or to make sure that all relevant rules have been consulted. Litigating in Federal Court seeks to remedy this deficiency. Litigating in Federal Court is divided into two parts. The first part of the book covers all of the stages of federal court litigation, including a short narrative discussion of each stage and one or more charts showing the applicable rules and their relationship to each other. These charts have been drafted and re-drafted over a period of years in order to best represent the knowledge of litigation that Professor Woodley has acquired in the process of learning, teaching, and using the litigation process. The second part of the book contains multiple checklists for drafting most of the documents used in the pretrial process (which include citations of the basic relevant rules). This extremely practical yet analytically complex guide to federal court litigation will prove to be a valuable resource for law students and litigators alike.

There are moments in American history when all eyes are focused on a federal court: when its bench speaks for millions of Americans, and when its decision changes the course of history. More often, the story of the federal judiciary is simply a tale of hard work: of finding order in the chaotic system of state and federal law, local custom, and contentious lawyering. The Federal Courts is a story of all of these courts and the judges and justices who served on them, of the case law they made, and of the acts of Congress and the administrative organs that shaped the courts. But, even more importantly, this is a story of the courts' development and their vital part in America's history. Peter Charles Hoffer, Williamjames Hull Hoffer, and N. E. H. Hull's retelling of that history is framed the three key features that shape the federal courts' narrative: the separation of powers; the federal system, in which both the national and state governments are sovereign; and the widest circle: the democratic-republican framework of American self-government. The federal judiciary is not elective and its principal judges serve during good behavior rather than at the pleasure of Congress, the President, or the electorate. But the independence that lifetime tenure theoretically confers did not and does not isolate the judiciary from political currents, partisan quarrels, and public opinion. Many vital political issues came to the federal courts, and the courts' decisions in turn shaped American politics. The federal courts, while the least democratic branch in theory, have proved in some ways and at various times to be the most democratic: open to ordinary people seeking redress, for example. Litigation in the federal courts reflects the changing aspirations and values of America's many peoples. The Federal Courts is an essential account of the branch that provides what Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Judge Oliver Wendell Homes Jr. called "a magic mirror, wherein we see reflected our own lives."