Judicial reports: Put away those tea leaves

The business of the lawyer is "prophecy," wrote legal scholar Max Radin in 1925. After all, the better your organization can predict the outcome of motions and other rulings, the better it can advise a client and prepare sensible strategies.

Accordingly, you'll want to learn anything you can about the approaches, predilections, and philosophy of the judge presiding over the case. That's where Judicial Motion Reports and Judicial Reversal Reports—newly released on Westlaw—come in.

Judicial Motion Report
A Judicial Motion Report gathers the motion history of a particular U.S. district court or bankruptcy judge and analyzes that history according to motion type (11 motion types are available), case type, role of the filing party, and other filters you designate. At any level of the analysis, you can click Judicial Motion List in the left frame to retrieve a tailored list of links to full-text motions, rulings, and dockets.

You can access Judicial Motion Reports in any of several ways, including the following:

Click Judicial Motion Reports under Find a Person at the Site Map page; then use the Judicial Reports search template to run a search for the judge's name.
Click Judicial Motion Reports on the Links tab while viewing a judge's profile retrieved from the Profiler–Profiles of Attorneys and Judges database (PROFILER-WLD).
Click Judicial Motion Reports, when available, in a ResultsPlus list.

Once you retrieve a Judicial Motion Report, you can customize the report by adding one or more filters. To add a filter, click the appropriate link, e.g., click Summary Judgment in the Type of Motion section. To add several filters simultaneously, use the Advanced Filter feature: Click Customize This Report at the top of the report, select or clear check boxes as desired, and click Apply. (To remove all filters, click Restore Original Report at the top of the report.)

Judicial Reversal Report
A Judicial Reversal Report analyzes either of the following:

a trial judge's record of reversals, affirmances, and other dispositions on appeal
an appellate judge's record of deciding appeals from lower courts, as well as the appellate judge's own record on appeal

You can retrieve a Judicial Reversal Report by doing any of the following:

Click Judicial Reversal Reports under Find a Person at the Site Map page; then use the search template to run a search for a judge's name.
Click Judicial Reversal Reports on the Links tab while viewing a judge's profile retrieved from PROFILER-WLD.
Click Judicial Reversal Reports on the Links tab while viewing a Judicial Motion Report.
Click Judicial Reversal Reports in selected ResultsPlus lists.

Like the Judicial Motion Report, a Judicial Reversal Report can be filtered by any of several categories. You can click Appellate Document List at any level of the report for links to documents cited at that level.

Example

To retrieve a list of citations, dispositions, and document links for employment and labor law cases on appeal from Judge Barbara Crabb, use one of the above methods to retrieve Judge Crabb's Judicial Reversal Report. Click Case Types on the Links tab. Click Employment/Labor in the right frame, then click Appellate Document List on the Links tab.

Used together, Judicial Motion Reports and Judicial Reversal Reports help you manage your clients' expectations, develop informed motion and appeal strategies, and reduce time spent drafting motions and briefs.

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