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Wyoming-born, Wyoming-raised, and Wyoming-educated, you might just call Attorney General Gregory Phillips "Mr. Wyoming." Generations of his family have come from Uinta County. Phillips completed high school, college, and law school - all without leaving the great State of Wyoming. According to his state-provided bio, he then clerked for the Honorable Alan B. Johnson, a U.S. District Court Judge in, you guessed it, Wyoming.

After finishing school and his clerkship, Mr. Phillips entered private practice. He practiced law with his brother and father in his native Evanston, Wyoming from 1989 to 1998. During six of those years, he served as the State Senator from Uinta County. In 1998, after his family retired from law practice, he joined a law school buddy in starting a new private firm in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Hobby Lobby's Newest Hobby: Affordable Care Act Appeals

Craft stores are cool because they're not cool. It's all a part of the hipster obsession that we're supposed to be embracing or rejecting, depending upon whom you ask.

Crafting is a connection to the past: A time when you needed a scrapbook to catalog your life because it wasn't documented in excruciating detail on Facebook. A time when people cross-stitched "Home Sweet Home" instead of the best after-school special lines from Saved by the Bell.

Crafters have an appreciation for the best of yesteryear, so it's only fitting that one of the largest craft store chains in the country would have a similar fondness for the hottest legal topic of the last year: Affordable Care Act litigation.

Lawyers Urge Inhofe, Coburn to Call for Bacharach Confirmation

In June, The Oklahoman reported that U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert E. Bacharach didn’t have enough Republican support in the Senate to be confirmed for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals before the November elections because the selection and confirmation process for the seat is taking too long.

Though delaying tactics are common for the party that doesn’t control the White House — the goal is to delay making lifetime appointments to federal courts in hopes their party will regain the White House and the power to fill judicial vacancies — Oklahoma legal leaders are urging the state’s U.S. senators to use their “considerable influence” to end the confirmation stalemate, The Oklahoman reports.

Robert Bacharach's Tenth Circuit Nomination Held Up in Senate

U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert E. Bacharach has support from his home state senators and a "unanimously well qualified" rating from the American Bar Association, but he doesn't have enough Republican support in the Senate to be confirmed for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals before November, reports The Oklahoman.

President Obama nominated Judge Bacharach to fill Judge Robert Henry's vacancy on the Tenth Circuit in January. At the time, Oklahoma's senators, Jim Inhofe and Tom Coburn, expressed their support for Bacharach's nomination. Sen. Inhofe told The Oklahoman, "I like the guy ... it's not very often the White House and I agree on anything."

Will the Ninth Circuit Conference Kill All Future Conferences?

A number of you were probably disappointed when the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals announced last year that it was cancelling its 2012 Bench & Bar Conference. Colorado Springs may not be the most exotic location for a legal elbow-rubbing, but the Broadmoor resort — the proposed location for the conference — is the longest-running consecutive winner of both the AAA Five-Diamond and Forbes Travel Guide Five-Star awards. It looks swanky on the website.

But instead of planning a conference where you could kick back by the pool and share indemnity ghost stories with Judge Neil Gorsuch, the Tenth Circuit decided that it wouldn't be prudent to hold the conference due to budget cuts.

Your Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals neighbors have the opposite problem.

Roadless Rule Headed to the Supreme Court?

The Colorado Mining Association and the State of Wyoming are joining forces to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the Roadless Rule, a regulation that bans construction and reconstruction in certain inventoried roadless areas (IRAs).

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals denied en banc rehearing on the Roadless Rule in February; now the Clinton-era law's fate is in the Supreme Court's hands.

Cancel the Subscription: SCOTUS is Over Sua Sponte Issues?

A Colorado inmate is heading back to the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals to challenge his murder conviction 25 years after a court convicted him.

Patrick Wood was convicted of murdering a pizza shop assistant manager and other crimes in 1987. In 2008, he filed a federal habeas petition. Though the government never argued that Wood’s petition was untimely, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals raised the issue sua sponte and rejected Wood's petition as time-barred.

So are the Nine over sua sponte issues?

The Nine Eye the Tenth: Briefs Requested, Sentence Vacated

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals doesn't get as much love from the Supreme Court as its Ninth Circuit neighbors -- and by love, we of course mean reversal -- but the Denver-based appellate court and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals have been on the High Court's radar over the last week.

The Supreme Court recently issued two orders related to the Tenth Circuit.

Tenth Circuit: No En Banc Rehearing for Roadless Rule

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has issued its final word on the Roadless Rule, denying en banc rehearing in the matter this week; now it’s up to the Supreme Court to strike the Clinton-era law.

The Forest Service initially adopted the Interim Roadless Rule, an 18-month moratorium on road construction in most inventoried roadless areas (IRAs) in March 1999. The interim rule, which continued through August 2000, temporarily suspended decision-making regarding road construction and reconstruction in many unroaded areas within the National Forest System (NFS).

Obama Nominates Judge Robert Bacharach to Tenth Circuit

President Obama nominated Oklahoma Judge Robert Bacharach to a seat on the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday.

Judge Bacharach, who currently serves as a federal magistrate judge in Oklahoma City, will replace Judge Robert Henry. Judge Henry left his post as Chief Judge of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2010 to accept a position as President and CEO of Oklahoma City University, reports Tulsa World.