President Ronald Reagan appointed Robert Bork to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on February 9, 1982, elevating the author of "The Antitrust Paradox" to the federal bench widely considered the nation's second-most important court. Bork had been nominated on December 7, 1981, and the Senate confirmed him on February 8, 1982. The appointment gave the conservative legal movement's leading antitrust theorist a powerful judicial platform to implement his Chicago School ideology of minimal antitrust enforcement and corporate deregulation, while positioning him as a leading candidate for future Supreme Court nomination.
The DC Circuit hears the majority of cases challenging federal agency actions, reviewing EPA regulations, FCC rules, SEC enforcement actions, and FTC antitrust cases. Placing Bork on this court was therefore strategically crucial to the conservative movement's deregulatory agenda. During his five years on the DC Circuit (1982-1987), Bork authored opinions consistently favoring permissive treatment of corporate consolidation and restricted interpretations of antitrust statutes, while also advancing originalist constitutional philosophy that would become central to Federalist Society doctrine.
Bork's appointment coincided with the founding of the Federalist Society in 1982, and he became an influential figure within its networks. His DC Circuit tenure served as an extended audition for Supreme Court appointment, building the record that made him President Reagan's first choice to fill Justice Lewis Powell's seat in 1987. Though the Senate ultimately rejected Bork's Supreme Court nomination 42-58, his intellectual influence on antitrust law persisted — the consumer welfare standard he pioneered in "The Antitrust Paradox" remained the dominant enforcement framework for decades, enabling the corporate consolidation that transformed the American economy.