Circuit court is the name of court systems in several common law jurisdictions.

King Henry II instituted the custom of having judges ride around the countryside ("ride circuit") each year to hear cases, rather than forcing everyone to bring their cases to London (see Assize of Clarendon). Thus, the term "circuit court" is derived from the practice of having judges ride around the countryside each year on pre-set paths − circuits − to hear cases. Especially on the United States frontier, a judge might travel alone on horseback along with a group of lawyers. Abraham Lincoln was one such attorney who would ride the circuit in Illinois. In more settled areas, a stagecoach would be used. Eventually the legal caseload in a county would become great enough to warrant the establishment of a local judiciary. Most of these local judicial circuits (that is, in terms of the actual routes traveled by judges) have been thus replaced by judges regularly stationed at local courthouses, but in many areas the legacy term remains in use.

Judge Alex is an American syndicated courtroom television show that debuted September 12, 2005. The host/arbitrator is Judge Alex Ferrer, a former police officer, lawyer, and Florida judge. The series currently tapes at the Fox Television Center in Los Angeles, California after spending its first five seasons taping at KRIV's studio in Houston, Texas (KRIV is Fox's Houston affiliate).

The show was brought to 20th Television, the syndication arm of Fox, by Executive Producers Burt Wheeler and Sharon Sussman. The pilot was shot at Tribune Studios in Hollywood, California, in November 2004. The series began production in January 2005 and is directed by Arthur Bergel.

Alex Kozinski (born July 23, 1950) is Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, an essayist, and a judicial commentator.

Kozinski was born in Bucharest, Romania. In 1962, when he was 12, his parents, both Holocaust survivors, brought him to the United States. The family settled in the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, where his father, Moses, ran a small grocery store.

Kozinski graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles, receiving an A.B. degree in 1972, and from the UCLA School of Law, receiving a J.D. degree in 1975. Kozinski clerked for future Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Ninth Circuit from 1975 to 1976, and then for Chief Justice Warren Burger from 1976 to 1977. From June 5, 1981 to August 1982, Kozinski served as the first U.S. Special Counsel appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

In 1982, Kozinski was appointed chief judge at the newly formed United States Court of Federal Claims. In 1985, at the age of 35, Kozinski was appointed to a new seat at the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit by President Reagan, making him the youngest federal appeals court judge. Defending the court against criticism because of a controversial decision, Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, Kozinski went on record emphasizing judicial independence: "It seems to me that this is what makes this country truly great—that we can have a judiciary where the person who appoints you doesn't own you." He also took a stand against the charge that the Ninth Circuit is overly liberal, which led some to call it "The Notorious Ninth": "I can say with some confidence that cries that the Ninth Circuit is so liberal are just simply misplaced." On November 30, 2007, Kozinski was appointed the tenth chief judge of the Ninth Circuit.

Patricia Ann Millett (born c. 1963) is a Washington, D.C. attorney who has argued 31 cases before the United States Supreme Court, more than any other woman in private legal practice today. She currently heads the Supreme Court practice at the law firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. Millett also is a longtime former assistant to the United States Solicitor General and currently is an occasional blogger for SCOTUSblog.

Millett earned a bachelor's degree in political science summa cum laude from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1985. She then earned a law degree magna cum laude from Harvard Law School in 1988.

Millett began her legal career by working from 1988 until 1990 in the litigation department of the Washington, D.C. law firm Miller & Chevalier. She then worked from 1990 until 1992 as a law clerk for United States Circuit Judge Thomas Tang on the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

From 1992 until 1996, Millett worked for four years for the United States Department of Justice Civil Division's appellate staff, briefing and arguing more than 20 cases before federal appeals courts and occasionally state appeals courts.

Harry Mason Reid (born December 2, 1939) is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.

Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Nevada's 1st congressional district, and served in Nevada local and state government as city attorney of Henderson, a state legislator, the 25th Lieutenant Governor, and chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission.

As Senate Majority Leader and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Harry Reid has achieved a more senior elected position in the United States government than any Mormon in history.

Reid was born in Searchlight, Nevada, the third of the four sons of Inez Orena (née Jaynes), a laundress, and Harry Vincent Reid, a miner. His paternal grandmother was an English immigrant from Darlston, Staffordshire. Reid's boyhood home had no indoor toilet, hot water or telephone. Searchlight had no high school, so Reid boarded with relatives 40 miles away in Henderson, Nevada to attend Basic High School where he played football, and was an amateur boxer. While at Basic High he met future Nevada governor Mike O'Callaghan, who was a teacher there. Reid attended Southern Utah University and graduated from Utah State University where he double majored in political science and history. Reid also minored in economics from the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business. He then went to George Washington University Law School earning a J.D. while working for the United States Capitol Police.