Frank H. Easterbrook
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Frank Hoover Easterbrook (born 1948) has been a judge on the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals since 1985. Easterbrook is noted for his use of economic analysis of law, his legalist approach to judicial interpretation, for his clear writing style, and for being one of the most prolific judges of his generation. As one of the most prominent appellate judges in America today,[1] Easterbrook has recently been mentioned by some pundits as a potential nominee to the Supreme Court, though he does not appear to be on the shorter of the short lists.
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Early career
Judge Easterbrook was born in Buffalo, New York. His undergraduate education was at Swarthmore College, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and received his degree with high honors. He received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Chicago Law School (where he was an editor of the law review and a member of the Order of the Coif) in 1973, and then clerked for Judge Levin Hicks Campbell on the First Circuit. In 1974, along with Danny Boggs and Robert Reich, he joined the Solicitor General's office as an Assistant to the Solicitor General, and was promoted in 1978 to Deputy Solicitor General for the Justice Department. Easterbrook joined the faculty of the University of Chicago Law School in 1978 (and is still a senior lecturer there today), and was a principal at Lexecon from 1980 until his judicial appointment. Easterbrook argued twenty cases before the Supreme Court while in the Solicitor General's office and in private practice, including several landmark antitrust cases.
Nomination and judicial career
Judge Easterbrook was nominated by Ronald Reagan in August 1984 to a new seat created by 98 Stat. 333, 346; the U.S. Senate did not act on his nomination that year, and he was re-nominated in Reagan's second term on February 25, 1985. He was confirmed by the Senate on April 3, 1985, and received his commission the next day. The American Bar Association gave Easterbrook a low "qualified/not qualified" rating; in 2001, this rating was used as evidence of liberal bias in the ABA when the George W. Bush administration announced that it would no longer seek ABA ratings of judicial nominees.[2]
Among Judge Easterbrook's most prominent opinions are American Booksellers Ass'n v. Hudnut, 771 F.2d 323 (7th Cir. 1985), affirmed summarily, 475 U.S. 1001 (1986); Kirchoff v. Flynn, 786 F.2d 320 (7th Cir. 1986); In re Erickson, 815 F.2d 1090 (7th Cir. 1987); In re Sinclair, 870 F.2d 1340 (7th Cir. 1989); United States v. Van Fossan, 899 F.2d 636 (7th Cir. 1990); Miller v. South Bend, 904 F.2d 1081 (7th Cir. 1990) (en banc) (dissenting), reversed, 501 U.S. 560 (1991); United States v. Marshall, 908 F.2d 1312 (7th Cir. 1990) (en banc), affirmed under the name Chapman v. United States, 500 U.S. 453 (1991).
Academic work
Easterbrook is well-known for his academic work on corporate law, particularly the 1991 book The Economic Structure of Corporate Law, which he co-authored with Daniel Fischel. Easterbrook's article The Proper Role of a Target's Management in Responding to a Tender Offer, 94 Harv. L. Rev. 1161 (1981) (also co-authored with Fischel) is the most heavily cited corporate law article in legal scholarship. Easterbrook has also written influential articles on antitrust law and judicial interpretation, including Abstraction and Authority, 59 U. Chi. L. Rev. 349 (1992); Statutes' Domains, 50 U. Chi. L. Rev. 533 (1983); and Textualism and the Dead Hand, 66 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 1119 (1998).
Miscellaneous
- A 2004 poll by Legal Affairs magazine named Easterbrook one of the top twenty legal thinkers in the U.S.
- Frank Easterbrook is the brother of author Gregg Easterbrook and law school classmate of judge and former Supreme Court nominee Douglas H. Ginsburg.
- In an opinion, he joked that Space: 1999 episodes were cruel and unusual punishment.
- He argues that cyberlaw is not a separate and distinct legal discipline, comparing it to the 'law of the horse'.[3]