The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit (in

case citation Case citation is a system used by legal professionals to identify past court case decisions, either in series of books called reporters or law reports, or in a neutral style that identifies a decision regardless of where it is reported. Case c ...

s, 7th Cir.) is the U.S. federal court with appellate jurisdiction over the

courts A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accorda ...

in the following districts: * Central District of Illinois *

Northern District of Illinois The United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (in case citations, N.D. Ill.) is the federal trial-level court with jurisdiction over the northern counties of Illinois. Appeals from the Northern District of Illinois a ...

Southern District of Illinois The United States District Court for the Southern District of Illinois (in case citations, S.D. Ill.) is a federal district court covering approximately the southern third of the state of Illinois. Appeals from the Southern District of Illinois ...

* Northern District of Indiana *

Southern District of Indiana The United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana (in case citations, S.D. Ind.) is a United States district court, federal district court in Indiana. It was created in 1928 by an act of Congress of the United States, Congress ...

* Eastern District of Wisconsin *

Western District of Wisconsin The United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin (in case citations, W.D. Wis.) is a federal court in the Seventh Circuit (except for patent claims and claims against the U.S. government under the Tucker Act, which are a ...

The court is based at the

Dirksen Federal Building The Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse, commonly referred to as the Dirksen Federal Building, is a skyscraper in the Chicago Loop at 219 South Dearborn Street. It was designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and completed in 1964. The ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and is composed of eleven appellate judges. It is one of 13

United States courts of appeals The United States courts of appeals are the intermediate appellate courts of the United States federal judiciary. The courts of appeals are divided into 11 numbered circuits that cover geographic areas of the United States and hear appeals f ...

. The court offers a relatively unique internet presence that includes

wiki A wiki ( ) is an online hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser. A typical wiki contains multiple pages for the subjects or scope of the project, and could be either open to the pub ...

and

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feeds of opinions and oral arguments. It is also notable for having one of the most prominent

law and economics Law and economics, or economic analysis of law, is the application of microeconomic theory to the analysis of law, which emerged primarily from scholars of the Chicago school of economics. Economic concepts are used to explain the effects of law ...

scholars, Judge

Frank H. Easterbrook Frank Hoover Easterbrook (born September 3, 1948) is an American lawyer, jurist, and legal scholar who has served as a United States circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 1985. He was the Seventh Circuit's chief ...

, on its court.

Richard Posner Richard Allen Posner (; born January 11, 1939) is an American jurist and legal scholar who served as a federal appellate judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit from 1981 to 2017. A senior lecturer at the University of Chic ...

, another prominent law and economics scholar, also served on this court until his retirement in 2017. Three judges from the Seventh Circuit,

Sherman Minton Sherman "Shay" Minton (October 20, 1890 – April 9, 1965) was an American politician and jurist who served as a U.S. senator from Indiana and later became an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States; he was a member of the ...

, John Paul Stevens, and

Amy Coney Barrett Amy Vivian Coney Barrett (born January 28, 1972) is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. The fifth woman to serve on the court, she was nominated by President Donald Trump and has served since October 27, 2020. ...

, have been appointed as

Associate Justices Associate justice or associate judge (or simply associate) is a judicial panel member who is not the chief justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the Supreme Court of the United States and some state ...

of the Supreme Court. Dirksen Federal Building

Current composition of the court

Vacancies and pending nominations

List of former judges

Chief judges

Succession of seats

References

* ** primary but incomplete source for the duty stations * ** secondary source for the duty stations ** data is current to 2002 * ** source for the state, lifetime, term of active judgeship, term of chief judgeship, term of senior judgeship, appointer, termination reason, and seat information

External links

United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit

Recent opinions from FindLaw

Official wiki of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
— Launched April 18, 2007
The Seventh Circuit Review
{{DEFAULTSORT:United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit 1891 establishments in the United States Courts and tribunals established in 1891