The Honorable Harry T. Edwards and Linda A. Elliott

A prominent federal appellate judge once observed most that most people, if asked what judges do, would say they apply "the law" to the facts. But there is an important step in between. Appellate courts have to decide what the standard of review is, and that standard more often than not determines the outcome of an appeal.

After numerous years of reading appellate briefs and listening to oral arguments, the authors concluded that too many practicing lawyers fail to comprehend either the meaning or the importance of the standards of review guiding decision making in the federal appellate courts. Their decision to write Federal Standards of Review was spurred by their determination to provide appellate practitioners, as well as trial and agency attorneys, with a sophisticated but concise resource that would enable them to easily understand and apply the standards governing review of district court decisions and agency actions. The glowing testimonials that they have received, from leading practitioners and academics, confirm that they "have produced a 'must-have' book for anyone arguing an appeal in the federal system."

Federal Standards of Review has been described as "a superb treatment, clear and comprehensive, of a crucial aspect of every appellate case. This is a book that fills a huge gap in the literature and that every appellate lawyer, law clerk, and judge should own." Part One covers appellate court review of district court decisions, and Part Two addresses appellate review of administrative agency actions. The fundamentally different character of the decision making performed by trial courts and by agencies necessitates this separate treatment. In each of the two parts of the book, the authors first present an overview of the basic paradigm informing the applicable standards of review. They then detail the controlling standards, including those codified in Title 28, Section 2111 of the U.S. Code, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Federal Rules of Evidence, and the Administrative Procedure Act. Finally, relying upon seminal Supreme Court opinions, as well as circuit decisions that expand upon or fill gaps in Supreme Court precedent, they describe the caselaw that gives meaning to the principal doctrines of review.

After reading the book, one prominent attorney wrote: "As an appellate lawyer with more than 25 years of experience, I thought I was well versed in this topic. But I found myself taking notes within minutes of turning the cover." Another stated that the authors' "treatment is comprehensive, but very readable and will be equally useful to the lawyer handling her first appeal and the lawyer handling her hundredth." Given their years of experience in practice, law teaching, and work at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, Judge Edwards and Ms. Elliott were well suited to produce what has been characterized as a "brilliantly articulated treatment" of the federal standards of review.

Judge Edwards was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals in February 1980, served as Chief Judge from September 15, 1994, until July 15, 2001, and took senior status on November 3, 2005. He graduated from Cornell University in 1962 and the University of Michigan Law School in 1965. Judge Edwards was in private practice with Seyfarth, Shaw, Fairweather & Geraldson in Chicago from 1965 to 1970. He then moved to the academy and was a tenured member of the faculties at the University of Michigan Law School, where he taught from 1970 to 1975 and 1977 to 1980, and at Harvard Law School, where he taught from 1975 to 1977. He also taught at the Harvard Institute for Educational Management between 1976 and 1982. He served as a member and then Chairman of the Board of Directors of AMTRAK from 1978 to 1980 and as a neutral labor arbitrator under a number of major collective bargaining agreements during the 1970s. In 2006, he was appointed the Cochair of the Forensics Science Project established by the National Academy of Science (Committee on Science, Technology, and Law). Judge Edwards has coauthored five books and published scores of law review articles on federal courts, legal education, professionalism, judicial administration, labor law, equal opportunity, and higher education law. Since joining the court, he has taught law at Harvard, Michigan, Duke, Pennsylvania, Georgetown, and NYU School of Law. He is presently a Visiting Professor at NYU School of Law, where he has taught since 1990.

Linda A. Elliott is presently Special Counsel to Senior Circuit Judge Harry T. Edwards. She began her service to the Court in 1998, when she was appointed Deputy Circuit Executive. She has since served as Special Counsel to the Court and as the Director of Automation. Ms. Elliott had previously been a staff attorney at the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, where she worked for seven years representing indigent adults and children in both trial and appellate cases. She began her career as a law clerk to the Honorable Douglas W. Hillman, then Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan. From 1988 to 1990, she was an E. Barrett Prettyman Fellow at Georgetown University Law Center and, in 1997, returned to the Law Center as a Visiting Associate Professor of Law in the Criminal Justice Clinic. Ms. Elliott is currently an Adjunct Professor at the NYU School of Law, where she began teaching in 2001. Ms. Elliott is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School and Kalamazoo College.