For decades the U.S. courts of appeals were afflicted with the proverbial middle child syndrome. They were given less than deserved attention by legal scholars and political scientists, and their decisions commanded less media and popular attention than rulings by the Supreme Court and even decisions of federal district courts. To many observers, the appeals courts were relatively invisible. Circuit courts are convalescing from this affliction because increasingly political scientists are turning their analytical attention to these thirteen important stations of judicial power in American society.