Bloomberg Law reports that companies that turn to the federal courts to resolve fights with rivals and customers may find themselves in limbo if the government shutdown continues beyond next week.

The system can spend money left over from fees and other sources to run through Jan. 11, writes Bloomberg’s Erik Larson.

“After that, nonessential workers at the 94 federal district courts, and at higher courts across the country, may have to stay home even as skeleton crews show up—without pay—to handle matters deemed essential under U.S. law, including many criminal cases,” Larson explains.

Individual courts and judges then will decide how to fulfill those critical functions.

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

A Trump judicial nominee struggled to answer basic legal questions posed to him by a Republican senator, including his lack of experience on trial work, the amount of depositions he’d worked on and more, reports CNN.

Matthew Spencer Petersen, who currently serves as a commissioner on the Federal Election Commission, was in the hot seat when GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana asked him a string of questions about his experience on trials. On the question of how many depositions Petersen had worked on, the nominee said the number was fewer than five. And in response to another question, he said he couldn’t remember the last time he had read the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

The report by Miranda Green says that Petersen, who  is up for a seat on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, had to acquiesce on many occasions that his “background was not in litigation.” despite the role he was up for.

Read the CNN article.

Democrat Doug Jones’ victory in the Senate special election is likely to have an immediate effect on the Trump, predicts Jonathan R. Nash in The Hill.

Nash reports that two senators have voiced questions about the qualifications and temperament of some of Trump’s nomination to the courts.

With the Republicans Senate majority reduced to one, the opposition of two senators would leave Republicans without a majority to confirm judges.

In an opinion piece for The Hill, Nash, the Robert Howell Hall professor of law at Emory University School of Law, claims the overall quality of judicial nominees is good, but a few of the more recent nominees have generated controversy.

Read The Hill’s article.