According to the Heritage Foundation’s “judicial appointments tracker,” President Joe Biden has more confirmed judicial appointments through July 7 of his first term (7) than the last six presidents combined (6). Granted, President Donald Trump confirmed a Supreme Court nominee, Justice Neil Gorsuch, in that window. But despite the Trump administration leaving relatively few vacancies, federal judges began retiring at an extraordinary clip at the beginning of the Biden administration. And the Senate, despite a 50-50 partisan divide, has moved expeditiously with nominations, aided by the decline of the filibuster for judicial nominations.

But it’s probably the Biden administration’s decision to dispense with the American Bar Association’s approval process that has expedited the process most of all in these early days. Since the George W. Bush and Trump administrations also dispensed with the ABA, it’s not clear that any administration will pre-clear nominations with it. Indeed, it is likely the Obama administration’s experience and frustration with the ABA’s process that made the decision for Obama-Biden alumni. Without the ABA’s pre-approval process, the Biden administration has been able to move much more quickly and much earlier on any given vacancy.

And the ABA has given glowing recommendations to every nominee thus far. We’ll see if that shine fades in the future, but it’s worth emphasizing a separate frustration from the Obama administration was the ABA’s decision to rate a number of its prospective nominees as “not qualified,” which the Obama administration dutifully scuttled. The Biden administration, it appears, would have no such plan to do so, and so it’s a wait-and-see approach if the ABA ever deems one of Mr. Biden’s nominees to be “not qualified.”