n baseball, they're called utility players. They play all positions well, giving the team flexibility and letting the superstars save their stuff for the big games.
In the Ninth Circuit, the role is played by Peter Shaw, an appellate commissioner appointed by the court in 1994 who has since taken over lots of responsibilities previously assigned to the circuit judges: resolving post-appeal fee disputes; determining how much criminal appellate specialists get paid; ruling on key procedural motions; disciplining errant lawyers; and screening prisoners who want to represent themselves pro se before the circuit.
Shaw, who receives a $125,000 salary, is the only one of his kind -- what he calls an "appellate magistrate" -- in the country. His career seems a prelude for the role: He served a decade-long first tour of duty at the circuit, first as a law clerk for Seattle-based Judge Eugene Wright and later as supervisor to the circuit's three dozen or so staff attorneys.
He left in 1987, and spent 31/2 years working on litigation at Morrison & Foerster and 31/2 more doing appellate work for Crosby, Heafey, Roach & May.
He taught appellate advocacy to law students for nine years, and in some ways teaches it to practicing lawyers now.
He rules on motions for time extensions or the filing of oversized briefs and also plows through fee requests, oppositions to fee requests, and supporting exhibits in the wake of resolved civil matters. One of his most time-consuming jobs is making sure that prisoners who want to argue their own cases before the circuit understand the rigors of self-representation.
Criminal law practitioners credit Shaw for bringing uniformity to the approval of fee vouchers for those who get paid under the Criminal Justice Act. Before Shaw inherited the role -- and a 2-foot-high stack of complaints from counsel -- circuit judges used their own, widely varying criteria for when matters were deserving of compensation above the usual $2,500 flat fee.
"Before Peter took that job the Ninth Circuit was very inconsistent in the way it dealt with CJA vouchers," says Thomas Hillier, the federal public defender in Seattle. "He breathes consistency into that process. In addition, he comes to lawyers and talks to them about what he does and why he does it."
Shaw says he rarely gets into battles with counsel over compensation, though he handles about 900 requests a year. With lots of experience reading and writing briefs, he has an instinct for what is necessary. He says he utilizes the standard of "what a reasonably competent, experienced and efficient lawyer would do," though he acknowledges that not all counsel fit the description.
Miriam Krinsky, who supervises the appellate department in the Los Angeles office of the U.S. attorney and who chairs the Ninth Circuit's rules committee, says Shaw devotes more time to routine but important matters than circuit judges can and sees issues from both inside and out.
"He has a practitioner's perspective that is helpful for lawyers, and a good appreciation of what the judges would accept," she says.
When it comes to discipline proceedings, Shaw is "very thorough, very prepared, and very, very formal," according to Jerome Fishkin, who has argued before Shaw. "I had the impression he had read every case I had cited in my memorandum and understood the relationship [to the pending case]."
When Shaw heard this assessment, he insisted he is "not cold or impersonal," but noted that such cases are serious. "The litigants are entitled to as much process as I can give them."
There is one respect in which Shaw is decidedly not the circuit's utility player. That is when he is on their often-champion softball team in the San Francisco Lawyers League. Shaw is, and has been for many years, the circuit's pitcher.
