John Elwood Discusses Supreme Court and Federal Appeals Court Decisions in Law360

John Elwood, head of Arnold & Porter’s Appellate and Supreme Court practice, was quoted in the Law360 article, “After Tense Terms, Hints Of High Court Harmony With Circuits,” discussing signs of increasing alignment between the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal courts of appeals during the Court's latest term.

Elwood observed that appellate courts issued fewer "outlier" decisions this term, noting that "there were definitely fewer outlier decisions, I would say, or fewer really red-letter decisions, where everybody in the legal community was talking about it the next day."

He also explained that several of the Supreme Court's reversals reflected changes in the Court's own precedent rather than errors by the lower courts. "You can't fault the courts of appeals" in those situations, Elwood said. "They're doing their job if they apply existing law and leave it to the Supreme Court to overrule [its] own precedents."

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