The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has announced that it is now making recordings of oral arguments publicly available on its website, posted usually the same day argument occurs. Currently posted are oral arguments going back to May 21, 2008, which includes the en banc oral arguments held on May 22, 2008.The only catch is that the files are only available in .wmv format, which requires use of the Windows Media player. Not a big deal for most attorneys, as even those of us who have seen the light and switched over to a Mac platform can easily wrangle our way through. Still, it would be nice, for portability-sake, if the Court would make the recordings available in .mp3 format.The point, of course, to the title of this post is that this easily accessible library of recordings is nice - not just for evening entertainment of listening to Fifth Circuit oral arguments, or for post-argument analysis of how you did - but, obviously, for use in preparing for upcoming oral arguments. When you find out your panel, usually a week before oral argument, you know already that you should research the judges’ opinions to divine how responsive each is to your various issues so that you can anticipate the tenor of oral argument. Now you can take a step away from divination and toward actual knowledge, if you don’t have it already, of how your judge reacts in oral argument to various approaches and arguments.It’s not a magic bullet, but it is one more beneficial weapon in your arsenal as you get ready.