There is now a whole new industry of using retired judges in a variety of ways. They have already mediated cases that were on appeal. Presumably, they, as retired judges, have also been used for moot courting appellate arguments.
I was recently told how they could be helpful in other ways. I learned that a party was going to file an application for a writ of certiorari to an appellate court for it to overturn a pre-trial ruling of a trial court. The party retained retired court of appeal judges to review its application to help improve the likelihood that the appellate court would grant the party's application and reverse the ruling of the trial court. I don't know what happened, but I would bet that the appellate court was more likely to rule in the party's favor after the party revised its application based on the recommendations of the retired judges.
Additionally, of course, retired judges could also review appellate briefs so that parties could gain the insights of the retired judges and improve their briefs, and, hopefully, their chances for success.
Posted by ajlevy at June 15, 2003 5:20 PM