Among the reasons that courts issue protective orders in both civil and criminal cases is to keep discovery confidential on a showing of good cause. Experience has proved confidentiality protective orders to grease the wheels of discovery in many cases. The protective orders discussed in this pocket guide are different from sealing orders that protect the courts' own records and protective orders that protect information from discovery.

Although U.S. federal courts across the country are seeing an ever-increasing number of cases associated with international commercial arbitration, few judges are familiar with this unique and complicated area of law. This guide offers judges a useful framework for analysis of matters relating to international commercial arbitration by providing a succinct and practical overview of the field as well as a specific, motion-by-motion discussion of the kinds of issues that commonly arise in U.S.

This pocket guide provides a basic overview of the issues judges can expect to face when assigned a capital habeas case. It begins with appointment of counsel, budgeting concerns, and stays of execution. It then summarizes the primary procedural considerations that affect habeas cases - successive petitions, petition timeliness, state remedies exhaustion, procedural default, and amending a petition.

Court case records and proceedings are presumptively public, but occasionally there are compelling reasons for keeping all or parts of them confidential, sometimes permanently but often only temporarily. This pocket guide summarizes the case law on sealing records and proceedings and presents a useful procedural checklist of seven principles to follow when denying public access.