When does an appeal or petition have “sufficient merit to proceed” so that a vexatious litigant subject to a pre-filing review order can move forward with it without counsel and without a certification of good faith from the district court? The Ninth realizes in In re Keith Thomas, case no. 01-80091 (9th Cir. Nov. 29, 2007) that it has never quite made it clear: Because our decisions pursuant to a pre-filing review order are rarely published, we have not yet clarified the standard for determining whether an appeal or petition has sufficient merit to proceed. We take the opportunity to do so now. The court examines standards in cases of…