Not Plagiarism, but Not a Good Idea

The United States Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit reversed and remanded a case to the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, because the district court judge had adopted a proposed opinion and order submitted by one party’s attorneys, nearly verbatim, as the judge’s own opinion and order. Because of this adoption and certain other procedural irregularities, the 3rd Circuit found no evidence in the record that the District Court had conducted its own independent review, or that the opinion was the product of its own judgment.

See Bright v. Westmoreland County. See also The Legal Reader for more discussion and links.