The Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation first came about when Earl Warren, then chief justice of the United States, appointed a committee of federal judges in 1961 to hear about 2,000 antitrust lawsuits that had been filed against several electrical-equipment manufacturers. In 1968, Congress passed a law formally creating the panel.
Under the statute, the chief justice appoints seven district or circuit judges, no two of whom can be from the same circuit. A decade ago, then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist changed the rules so that judges were appointed for a term of seven years.
