Lawyers For Fair Reciprocal Admission v. United States, et al.

The appeal presenting these questions was docketed in the Third Circuit on January 26, 2023. In the more than three and a half years since, the United States has never filed a responsive brief, and the court of appeals has never ordered one, heard argument, or decided the appeal. A petition for a writ of certiorari is filed concurrently in Lawyers for Fair Reciprocal Admission v. Timmer, No. 26-____, presenting the state-law half of the same question on a final judgment of the Ninth Circuit. The questions presented are:

1. Whether D.N.J. L.Civ.R. 101.1 and D. Del. L.Civ.R. 83.5—which categorically deny general bar admission to attorneys licensed and in good standing in the other forty-nine states, allocating the right to file, appear, and petition in the courts of the United States by class membership rather than individual merit—violate the First Amendment and the equalprotection component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause.

2. Whether the Local Rules' class-based exclusions that have nothing to do with individual merit exceed the rulemaking authority conferred by 28 U.S.C. §§ 1654, 2071, and 2072, as construed in Frazier v. Heebe, 482 U.S. 641 (1987), and Siegel v. Fitzgerald, 596 U.S. 464 (2022), or can survive any standard of review, when these are federal courts administering federal law.