This pocket guide was developed to help judges manage complex e-discovery in federal criminal cases. The advantages of electronically stored information (ESI, or e-discovery) include speed, efficiency, and quality of information. To ensure these benefits are realized, judges and lawyers working on federal criminal cases need guidance on how best to address e-discovery issues.

This guide provides judges with an introduction to some of the major areas of international environmental law and examines how the law might arise in federal litigation involving climate change, hazardous chemicals and materials, protected species, water pollution, air pollution, environmental disaster response, and transborder enforcement of environmental regulations.

This is a primer on mindfulness and its uses in judging. Mindfulness involves slowing down one’s mental processes enough to allow one to notice as much as possible about a given moment or situation, and then to act thoughtfully based on what one has noticed. Much of the discussion of mindfulness in relation to judges so far has focused on health and wellness, but mindfulness also has obvious implications for the actual work that judges do.

This manual provides a practical guide to steps that courts can take before and during litigation to manage nonprisoner pro se litigation more efficiently, steps that may also help pro se litigants better navigate the complexities of federal civil litigation. Part I discusses the concept of procedural fairness and the goal of increasing access to justice; it also addresses some of the potential ethical concerns about providing assistance to pro se litigants.