ABSTRACT
Administrators do not know judges on the U.S. Courts of Appeals personally, not unless they are directly involved in litigation, and even then their interactions are formal. The relationship between agencies and courts is defi ned by their written exchanges. Judges know agencies from the administrative records they have compiled and the policies that they have enacted on the strength of these records. Agencies know judges from their written opinions. When adverse decisions come down, administrators do not meet with judges face to face. The evaluation of the court’s judgment occurs privately, in printed form at the administrator’s desk or electronically on the computer. Judges must get their points across to administrators on the strength of their writing alone, without the benefi t of verbal emphasis or further elaboration.
