[2] The U.S. Congress enacted several pieces of legislation with respect to Washington, D.C.'s local judicial system.

The Court of Appeals then passed rules requiring applicants to the D.C. bar to have graduated from an ABA-accredited law school.

The plaintiffs - Feldman and Hickey - were practicing attorneys from other states, but neither had graduated from ABA-accredited law schools.

Feldman was denied admission by the Committee on Admissions of the District of Columbia Bar, so he sought a similar waiver of the D.C. rule, sending a letter to the D.C. Court of Appeals that suggested that their absolute prohibition of lawyers who had not attended certain schools was a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, and of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The denial of a waiver for admission to the bar, an evaluation of specific facts in light of an existing rule of law, was a judicial determination, only appealable to the Supreme Court.