Constitution Day 2023 – Actual Malice: Civil Rights and Freedom of the Press in New York Times v. Sullivan September 14 at 3:00 PM EDT. Register here:https://loc.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_Zi4ajZpNQA-V3ozTYKTZXQ University at Buffalo School of Law Professor Samantha Barbas will provide a lecture that discusses the roots of the U.S. Supreme Court’s New York Times v. Sullivan decision, which created the “actual malice” standard that a public official must prove in a successful suit for defamation. Professor Barbas’ lecture will focus on describing the origins of the New York Times v. Sullivan decision in the context of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement.
On August 9, 2023, the Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office announced that, with the assistance of the City of Santa Barbara, California, and the California Bureau of Alcoholic Beverages Control, it had “disposed of approximately 2,000 bottles of wine and other alcohol . . . in connection with an illegal underwater wine aging and sales operation.” According to reports of this case, destroying the wine stemmed from a plea agreement entered into by three defendants who were caught placing wine crates one mile off the Santa Barbara coast. These actions were apparently done without receiving permits from the California Coastal Commission or the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Because I had never heard of undersea wine-aging, I decided to dig a little more deeply into the legal elements involved in this matter.
Sonoma County, California. Bottles of sparkling wine produced in Sonoma County, California. Russell Lee. Jan. 1942. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8c23583
In the United States, however, undersea wine-aging is prohibited. In 2015, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) issued an advisory “in response to recent interest in the aging of wine under ocean waters.” That notice provided:
The FDA has advised us that aging wine in a way that bottle seals have contact with sea or ocean waters may render these wines adulterated under the FD&C Act in that they have been held under unsanitary conditions whereby they may have become contaminated with filth or may have been rendered injurious to health (21 U.S.C. § 342(a)(4)).
The TTB’s advisory goes on to list several potential risks related to undersea aging. It further notes that the laws prohibiting underwater wine-aging processes from occurring in the United States also prevent these wines from being imported by a “producer, importer or wholesaler, or other industry member subject to 27 U.S.C. § 205(e).”
It is possible, however, that a complete ban on these products may not be long-lived. Last year, the FDA issued a letter of no objection to a wine importer in Wisconsin, permitting the business to import wine bottles aged in the Adriatic Sea by a specific winery that had submitted a significant amount of evidence on product safety.
If you would like more information about wine and liquor laws in the United States, you may be interested in the following resources:
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This conversation was held in person at the Library of Congress, as well as streamed online. You can now watch a recording here:
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Please join us on September 28, 2023, at 2 p.m. EDT for our next foreign, comparative, and international law webinar titled, “Israel’s Legal Reforms.” This webinar is the latest installment in the Law Library’s Foreign and Comparative Law Webinar Series.
On January 4, 2023, Israel’s Minister of Justice Yariv Levin introduced a comprehensive plan for an overhaul of the Israeli judiciary. The four elements of the initial state of the reforms, according to Levin, would include a limitation clause that would restrict the ability of the courts, and especially the Supreme Court, to conduct judicial review of Knesset (Israel’s unicameral parliament) legislation. It would also provide the government control over the selection of judges;cancel the ‘standard of unreasonableness’ used for evaluation of alleged administrative corruption; and transform the attorney general and ministerial legal advisors into political appointees. The proposed reforms are strongly opposed by the President of Israel’s Supreme Court and by the Attorney General and have triggered a fierce debate and massive public protests.
This webinar will provide an overview of the constitutional framework in Israel, the system of checks and balances, and the current law regulating the judicial branch. The webinar will address the objectives of the proposed reforms, their main components, and their possible impact on the legal system. Information on the current status of the reforms will similarly be provided.
The webinar will be presented by Ruth Levush, senior foreign law specialist in the Global Legal Research Directorate of the Law Library of Congress. Ruth conducts research on Israeli domestic law, as well as comparative and international law, for the U.S. Congress, executive agencies, and the U.S. judiciary. Her work has been cited by the U.S. Supreme Court, and her reports have been admitted into evidence as expert testimony by various U.S. federal courts. Ruth previously served as a special assistant to Justice Aharon Barak, former president of Israel’s Supreme Court, and practiced law in Israel as an attorney, both in government and in private practice. She holds a Master of Comparative Law (American practice) from The George Washington University Law School and a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) from Tel Aviv University Law School. Ruth is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and was admitted to the Israeli Bar.
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Library of Congress Announces 2023 Literacy Awards on International Literacy Day Top Prizes Awarded to The News Literacy Project, Downtown Boxing Gym and Worldreader
Three organizations working to expand literacy and promote reading will be awarded the 2023 Library of Congress Literacy Awards, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced today. Top prizes are being awarded toThe News Literacy Project, Downtown Boxing Gym and Worldreader.
The Literacy Awards program, sponsored by David M. Rubenstein since 2013, honors organizations that provide exemplary, innovative and replicable strategies to combat illiteracy. For more than 10 years, the Library of Congress has recognized the urgent need to achieve universal literacy through the program.
“Literacy is a pathway to an individual’s happiness, health, and wellbeing,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. “The Library of Congress is proud to honor and celebrate the achievements of these extraordinary organizations, through the generosity of David M. Rubenstein, in their commitment to expanding literacy around the world.”
Prizes and Recipients
2023 David M. Rubenstein Prize ($150,000):The News Literacy Project, Washington, D.C.
Founded in 2008, the News Literacy Project advances the practice of news literacy throughout American society, creating better informed, more engaged and more empowered individuals. The organization’s expansive interpretation of literacy skills and its robust approach to helping individuals, including teachers, students and the general public, navigate and analyze media messages comes at a critical time. The News Literacy Project provides resources and programs to help students across the country develop media literacy skills, including fact-checking, source evaluation and media bias awareness. Through partnerships with schools, and more than 55,000 educators and journalists, they work to create a more informed and engaged citizenry. Their programs and resources are also available free to the public.
2023 American Prize ($50,000): Downtown Boxing Gym, Detroit, Michigan
Downtown Boxing Gym is a free, out-of-school time program based in Detroit, Michigan, that seeks to improve academic outcomes for high-need youth. Through its unique approach — mentoring and literacy intervention offered through a boxing gym — the organization improves young people’s motivation and confidence in reading. Downtown Boxing Gym builds strong relationships with its participants and their families through one-on-one intervention, tutoring, daily homework help, athletics and a customized enrichment curriculum. Books and program materials align with community interests, experiences, cultures and backgrounds. With a strong focus on building positive relationships with students, the organization maintains a culture of achievement. Students actively participate in academic goal setting, mentor their peers, advocate for themselves and have a voice in what they learn.
2023 International Prize ($50,000): Worldreader, Seattle, Washington
Worldreader provides mobile reading technology for advancing literacy to more than 21 million readers in numerous countries. Worldreader supports parents and caregivers, pre-school workers, school teachers and local partners with access to reading materials, training, impact data and continuous engagement support. These efforts build early childhood development and reading outcomes for children in under-resourced communities and also in conflict and crisis settings. Worldreader provides local and culturally relevant digital materials that address socio-emotional learning, gender sensitivity, and cultural and political awareness.
2023 Successful Practices Honorees ($5,000)
The Library of Congress Literacy Awards program honors 15 additional organizations for their implementation of highly successful practices in literacy programming. These honorees, recipients of $5,000 each, are:
Ako Aotearoa’s Manako Program,Wellington, New Zealand
Book Love Foundation,North Conway, New Hampshire
BookSpring,Austin, Texas
Building Tomorrow,Indianapolis, Indiana
Compassion Books,Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Dominican Literacy Center, Aurora,Aurora, Illinois
Get Lit – Words Ignite’s Uni(verse) Program,Los Angeles, California
An Open Book Foundation,Washington, D.C.
Pakistan Alliance for Girls Education (PAGE),Islamabad, Pakistan
PEAS (Promoting Equality in African Schools),London, United Kingdom
Queens Borough Public Library,Queens, New York
Rio Grande Valley Literacy Center,Pharr, Texas
Virginia Children’s Book Festival,Keysville, Virginia
WISE Zambia,Phoenix, Arizona
Yayasan Sulinama’s Collaboration with INOVASI,Ambon, Indonesia
David M. Rubenstein is the co-founder and co-executive chairman of The Carlyle Group. He is a major benefactor of the Library of Congress and the chairman of the Library’s lead donor group, the James Madison Council.
The United Nations General Assembly designates a number of “international days” to mark important aspects of human life and history, includingInternational Literacy Day on Sept. 8. For more information on International Literacy Day, visit:https://en.unesco.org/commemorations/literacyday.
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit atloc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information atCongress.gov; and register creative works of authorship atcopyright.gov.
I am the head of the Public Services Division (PSD) of the Law Library of Congress. I am responsible for the daily operations of the Law Library Reading Room and its staff, librarians, and technicians who perform reference, research, instructional, outreach, and collections services. I have been in this position since January 2023, and prior to that, I worked in the division for about five years.
What are you most proud of that you have worked on at the Law Library of Congress?
I am most proud of the day-to-day work of my division. We tackle many different legal research and reference requests, from helping someone find information about the landlord-tenant laws in their state to supporting the work of the highest levels of government. I am proud that we help people every day.
What is something interesting you have discovered from working with the Law Library’s print and electronic collections?
I enjoy reading firsthand accounts of law in everyday life. One of the books I have come across is A Widow Against the Courts by Maria Rauth Vaughn. Published in 1939, it is Mrs. Vaughn’s first-person account of her dissatisfaction with the attorneys involved in her claim to her late husband’s estate. Most of the book is comprised of court records, letters, and testimony, together with Mrs. Vaughn’s annotations and selected quotations about the administration of justice. She believed that she had been severely wronged by the legal profession and made it her mission to bring the injustice to light. In her introduction, she wrote, “[t]o the hundreds of lawyers, judges, law schools and law libraries to whom this book will be delivered … it is with the sincere hope that they all may see something of the third side of this ‘case’—that is, the laymen who pay the bills.” I hope Mrs. Vaughn would have a sense of satisfaction to know that her account is preserved and available at the Library of Congress, and still being read today.
What is your favorite Law Library of Congress resource and why?
My current favorite resource from the Law Library of Congress is our online research guides. Our guides cover common research scenarios and most are appropriate for those who have no legal background. We try to prepare research guides that address the questions we frequently receive, such as how to compile a legislative history or how to trace the history of a regulation.
What is the most interesting fact you have learned about the Library of Congress?
I would not say I have a favorite “legal novel or movie” but I enjoy a good mystery. When I worked at the Wahab Public Law Library in Virginia Beach, one of the law library patrons recommended the Andy Carpenter mysteries by David Rosenfelt. The series is about a semi-retired attorney from New Jersey who solves mysteries and runs a dog rescue foundation. I love the audiobook versions—the narrator, Grover Gardner, is wonderful and the stories are perfect for long car rides.
Subscribe to In Custodia Legis – it’s free! – to receive interesting posts drawn from the Law Library of Congress’s vast collections and our staff’s expertise in U.S., foreign, and international law.
Library of Congress Honors Libraries in New Jersey and Michigan for Outstanding Service to Readers with Disabilities
The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled (NLS) at the Library of Congress today recognized two of its cooperating libraries in New Jersey and Michiganfor their outstanding service to readers with visual, physical or print disabilities.
The New Jersey State Library Talking Book and Braille Center in Trenton, New Jersey, received the 2023 Regional Library of the Year Award, while the Library for the Visually and Physically Disabled Branch of Muskegon Area District Library in Muskegon, Michigan, received the Sub-regional Library/Advisory and Outreach Center of the Year Award.
Both libraries – among nearly 100 in the National Library Service network of cooperating libraries – were honored today at a luncheon in the historic Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. Each also received a $1,000 award and a commemorative plaque.
“One of these libraries is large, the other is much smaller, but they have much in common: energy, creativity, and a 24/7 commitment to ensuring that disability stops no one from experiencing the lifelong joy of reading,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. “They are shining examples of service the National Library Service and its network of libraries provide to hundreds of thousands of people from coast to coast.”
TheTalking Book and Braille Centerserves nearly 14,000 patrons throughout New Jersey, loans materials in audio and braille and provides services for children and teens as well as for the state’s Spanish-speaking population. In addition, the Talking Book and Braille Center manages NFB-NEWSLINE, the National Federation of the Blind’s audio news service, for more than 3,300 subscribers in New Jersey. It also manages the state Commission for the Blind and Visually Impaired’s Technology Loan Program and Library Equal Access Program, providing accessible technology, support and training to residents with print disabilities. And it provides reading materials to a summer camp for blind children.
The Talking Book and Braille Center hosts a monthly virtual book discussion group and a biennial fall festival at the Grounds for Sculpture in Hamilton Township, which provides patrons tactile interaction with the arts. For the past 12 years, the center has also hosted a fundraising golf tournament with as many as 55 blind and sighted participants.
Among the Muskegon Area District Library’s initiatives are a Senior Book Bin service, which delivers bins of large-print books to area senior organizations each month, and Phone-A-Story, a dial-in service that offers weekly recordings of poems, short stories and children’s stories.
The library has an array of accessible technology on site for patrons to use, including closed-circuit televisions that magnify images, an optical character reader, a refreshable braille display and a device that projects games onto an interactive surface.
Created 92 years ago, the National Library Service launched the Network Library Awards in 2004. A committee of librarians and consumer-organization representatives recommends finalists from nominated libraries to the National Library Service director based on mission support, creativity and innovation in providing service and demonstrated reader satisfaction.
The National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled administers the talking-book and braille program, a free library service available to U.S. residents and American citizens living abroad whose low vision, blindness or print disability makes reading regular printed material difficult. Through its national network of libraries, the National Library Service provides books and magazines in audio and braille formats and playback equipment directly to patrons at no cost. Materials are also available online for download and are accessible on smart devices through the BARD Mobile app. Music instructional materials are available in large-print, ebraille, braille and recorded formats. For more information, visitloc.gov/nlsor call 1-888-NLS-READ (1-888-657-7323).
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit atloc.gov; access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information atcongress.gov; and register creative works of authorship atcopyright.gov.
U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón to Publish Anthology, Bring Poetry to National Parks as part of Signature Project, “You Are Here”
Ada Limón’s signature project as the nation’s 24th Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, “You Are Here,” will feature two major new initiatives: an anthology of commissioned nature poems and poetry installed as public art in seven national parks.
“I want to champion the ways reading and writing poetry can situate us in the natural world,” Limón said. “Never has it been more urgent to feel a sense of reciprocity with our environment, and poetry’s alchemical mix of attention, silence, and rhythm gives us a reciprocal way of experiencing nature — of communing with the natural world through breath and presence.”
A new anthology, “You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World,” will be published by Milkweed Editions in association with the Library of Congress on April 2. It will feature original poems by 50 contemporary American poets, including former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, Pulitzer Prize winner Diane Seuss, and PEN/Voelcker Award winner Rigoberto González, who reflect on and engage with their particular local landscape. As Limón said, “With poems written for vast and inspiring vistas to poems acknowledging the green spaces that flourish even in the most urban of settings, this anthology hopes to reimagine what ‘nature poetry’ is during this urgent moment on our planet.”
“You Are Here: Poetry in Parks,” an initiative with the National Park Service and the Poetry Society of America, will feature site-specific poetry installations in seven national parks across the country. These installations, which will transform picnic tables into works of public art, will each feature a historic American poem that connects in a meaningful way to the park and will “encourage visitors to pay deeper attention to their surroundings,” according to Limón.
Participating national parks are:
Cape Cod National Seashore (Massachusetts)
Cuyahoga Valley National Park (Ohio)
Great Smoky Mountains National Park (North Carolina and Tennessee)
Everglades National Park (Florida)
Mount Rainier National Park (Washington)
Redwood National and State Parks (California)
Saguaro National Park (Arizona)
Limón will travel to each of the participating parks in the summer and fall of 2024 to unveil and celebrate the new installations and support community outreach.
“In this moment when the natural world is making headlines, Ada Limón’s signature project will help us connect more personally to America’s greatest parks as well as show how the poets of our time capture the natural world in their own lives,” said Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. “It also extends our laureate’s engagement with federal agencies and literary partners, to promote poetry to the nation.”
Limón has a number of major collaborations under way to share poetry with the public. On June 1, she returned to the Library to reveal “In Praise of Mystery: A Poem for Europa,” which she wrote for NASA’s Europa Clipper mission. Limón’s poem will be engraved on the spacecraft that will travel 1.8 billion miles to explore Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. The poem is part ofNASA’s “Message in a Bottle” campaign,which has gathered more than 450,000 signatures from people around the world signing on to the poem. The campaign will run through 2023.
For National Poetry Month, Limón has served as the guest editor for the Academy of American Poets Poem-a-Day series in a first-ever series collaboration between the Academy and the Library of Congress. The Academy will also support the promotion of the “You Are Here” anthology upon publication.
Limón began her first term in September 2022 with an event at the Library of Congress. During her term, she participated in two events hosted by the first lady of the United States for the National Student Poets Program and for the State Visit with Brigette Macron, wife of the president of France. Limón also participated in an event hosted by Beatriz Gutiérrez Müller, wife of the president of Mexico, for the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico City, and she participated in a conversation with Argentine and Brazilian poets for the Library’s Palabra Archive.
About Ada Limón
Ada Limón was born in Sonoma, California, in 1976 and is of Mexican ancestry. She is the author of six poetry collections, including “The Carrying” (Milkweed Editions, 2018), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry; “Bright Dead Things” (2015), a finalist for the National Book Award and the National Books Critics Circle Award; “Sharks in the Rivers” (2010); “Lucky Wreck” (Autumn House, 2006); and “This Big Fake World” (Pearl Editions, 2006). She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University and is the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the New York Foundation for the Arts, the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and the Kentucky Foundation for Women.
Her newest poetry collection, “The Hurting Kind,” was published as part of a three-book deal with Milkweed Editions that includes the publication of “Beast: An Anthology of Animal Poems,” featuring work by major poets over the last century, followed by a volume of new and selected poems.
About the Poet Laureate Position
The Library of Congress Literary Initiatives Office is the home of the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, a position that has existed since 1937 when Archer M. Huntington endowed the Chair of Poetry at the Library. Since then, many of the nation’s most eminent poets have served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and, after the passage of Public Law 99-194 (Dec. 20, 1985), as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry — a position that the law states “is equivalent to that of Poet Laureate of the United States.”
During his or her term, the Poet Laureate seeks to raise the national consciousness to a greater appreciation of the reading and writing of poetry. In recent years, Laureates have initiated poetry projects that broaden the audiences for poetry.
The Library of Congress is the world’s largest library, offering access to the creative record of the United States — and extensive materials from around the world — both on-site and online. It is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office. Explore collections, reference services and other programs and plan a visit at loc.gov, access the official site for U.S. federal legislative information at congress.gov, and register creative works of authorship at copyright.gov.
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Media Contact: Brett Zongker, bzongker@loc.gov Public Contact: Robert Casper, (202) 707-1308
Join us on Tuesday, September 19, at 1:00 PM EDT for the Orientation to Law Library Collections Webinar. This webinar provides information about the Law Library’s wide range of online resources, as well as our print collections. Some of the resources attendees will learn about include the Law Library’s research guides, digital collections, and the Guide to Law Online, among others. This month’s webinar will also feature a special appearance by the University of Georgia: Alexander Campbell King Law Library as part of our state law libraries outreach project. Presenting from Georgia will be TJ Striepe, director of the Alexander Campbell King Law Library, and Anne Burnett, foreign and international law librarian at the Alexander Campbell King Law Library from the University of Georgia.
Michael Gans, of the Eighth Circuit, is the longest-serving clerk of court for a federal court of appeals.
Clifford Jackson, a case administrator in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, is supported by modern IT networks and equipment.
Michael Gans had recently joined the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals in 1983, as a deputy clerk of court, when a crisis threatened to reduce the court’s paper records to mush.
Tipped off that water was pouring out of his courthouse in St. Louis, Gans raced back to the building, only to watch helplessly as safety sprinklers kept soaking the clerk’s office long after a small fire was extinguished.
“The sprinklers ran for about five hours because they couldn’t find the shutoff valve,” recalled Gans. “All these paper files and docket sheets were under the sprinkler heads. We had to have everything freeze dried to try to save things.”
Since that long-ago episode, almost everything about how appellate courts manage their records and administrative staff is different, and Gans is one of several longstanding clerks of court to have witnessed the transformation firsthand.
“How we work has changed so dramatically,” said Gans. “I often say that if you could bring someone from the clerk’s office in 1920 into the same office in 1985, they would be able to sit down and do the job. But somebody who worked here in 2000 would not be able to do the work today.”
Gans was promoted to clerk of court in August 1991, and with 32 years of service, he is the nation’s longest-tenured clerk of court for a federal court of appeals. His observations are echoed by peers in other appellate courts who joined the Judiciary in the early 1980s.
“I came along at a time when there was a seismic shift beginning in clerk’s offices,” said Deborah Hunt, Sixth Circuit clerk of court. “It was starting to professionalize.”
While methods have evolved, the clerks’ essential mission remains largely the same.
“I sort of see myself as the person who has to know where everything is at any time and what everyone does,” said Mark Langer, who joined the D.C. Circuit in 1984 and has been clerk of court since 1995. “I have to know where things stand.”
Mark Langer, of the D.C. Circuit, has provided documentation for several Supreme Court nominations.
The federal law governing appellate clerks of courts was passed in 1948. However, such positions have existed since 1891, when Congress established the modern appellate system.
The federal Judiciary has 13 courts of appeals. Unlike district courts, which hear trials and testimony, appellate courts review lower-court decisions to make sure proceedings were fair and the law was applied correctly.
Clerks of appellate courts are both managers and lawyers. In addition to maintaining records and managing administrative staff, they make legal decisions on many procedural matters. In the D.C. Circuit, Langer oversees a team of staff attorneys who assess legal filings.
“We actually call it the legal division of the clerk’s office,” Langer said. “I read most of the work that the staff attorneys send to the court. If I have questions, I’ll call them and say, ‘Did you think about this?’”
Most filings are routine, but emergency motions, such as for a stay in a death penalty case, can require attention at all hours.
“High-profile cases and emergencies are so stressful,” Hunt said. “During COVID, it seemed like everyone had an emergency on Friday night, where if this doesn’t happen by Monday, the world will come to a screeching halt. It wasn’t just our court, it was every court.”
All three clerks agree on the two greatest changes they have seen since the early 1980s. Information technology has eliminated most paper, and clerk’s offices manage their own budgets and operations. In earlier eras, even many small expenditures required approval by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AO).
In a 1984 photo in the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, employees were entirely reliant on typewriters and paper documents.
“When I became clerk, I saw a slew of letters between my predecessor and the AO over a typewriter repair,” Gans recalled. “They finally agreed to spend $30 to repair this typewriter. And I wondered, what did that deputy clerk do for six weeks while they hashed out this $30 bill?”
Hunt, based in Cincinnati, has been Sixth Circuit clerk of court since 2012. She also was clerk of a district court and bankruptcy court. Technology has revolutionized efficiency, but at her bankruptcy court, job attrition was painful.
“I was literally reducing staff every year,” Hunt said. “That’s the most disheartening thing to have to do.”
Each appellate court has its own history and culture. In the District of Columbia, Langer has served many judges who later joined the Supreme Court. His office has supplied extensive documentation for each confirmation process.
“It’s both exciting and stressful,” Langer said. “It’s all hands on deck because so much information needs to be turned over to the White House and Senate. But you feel like you’re a little part of history when that happens.”
The Eighth Circuit has been marked by continuity. Gans is just the fifth clerk of court in its 130-year history. And after 32 years, Gans still enjoys coming to work.
“I still love the work and I love the people,” Gans said. “I’ve had many wonderful friends here, and we’ve always had a sense of family and team. Being able to provide a service not just to the court but also to the public, it really is important to me.”