Thanks for the shout-out.
Part of me wants to quit while I'm ahead after nailing Judge Berman's profile for the Board after talking to a few friends down here and then predicting how he might lean within a day or two of his being named to the original case, but I'll nose around and see what I can find out down here.
Chin was affiliated with the Vladeck firm. Here I can add something of use from personal experience. This means he was almost certainly hired by the the late Judith Vladeck (her daughter, Anne, is the Vladeck on the masthead of the current firm) and if he is cut from the same cloth, that bodes well for Brady. Judith Vladeck was a pioneer and one of the giants of labor and arbitration law. I met with her several times over a small matter on which she represented me in the late 1990's. For those of you who follow such things, the lawyer who brought down Isaiah Thomas over the sexual harassment of Anuka Browne Sanders was a member of the Vladeck firm and is known to us. So, one never knows how an Appellate Judge will rule on any given case on any given day, but this is not bad news.
Katzmann is the Chief Judge and it would be interesting to know if he appointed himself to this case or whether he just won (lost?) the lottery assigning judges. I don't know much about him, other than what I can find in a quick search. He was living in DC when Clinton appointed him directly to the Second Circuit from the Brookings Institution and not from a Judgeship on a Federal District Court. He has been an advocate for the legal representation of impoverished immigrants, and he seems to have been admired by former Justice Stevens, a SCOTUS Liberal Lion. Nothing there that you can't find in a quick internet search for yourselves, but this too looks promising.
I think it's fair to say that in Chin and Katzmann, we have two judges whose profiles suggest that they will give a very fair hearing to Labor's perspective in this matter, which is really all we can ask for. I doubt that Clement and Goodell are very happy this afternoon.
Anybody find out anything interesting about Parker?
Quick PS: if the Chief Judge joins a 3--0 ruling upholding Berman, it is highly unlikely that the Supreme Court would even take the Case were the NFL to appeal again.