|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Legal Fiction
By Sam Singer
As a law student you're taught that legal writing is technical writing. You're taught to distrust the fine phrase and the elegant word. Strong legal writing, you're told, resounds less in art than in science. This is only partly true, of course, and it's not until you leave law school that you discover that the most celebrated legal writers are often the most artful ones. Like the best artists, exemplary legal writers have mastered their medium, but they're also inclined to transcend it from time to time. So we nod approvingly when Justice Scalia, in the course of a caustic dissent in a high-profile anti-discrimination case, finds room for a Kurt Vonnegut reference; we're charmed by Justice Rehnquist's use of "bare minimum" to describe an Indiana law governing appropriate attire at strip clubs; and we marvel when a prominent federal judge wraps up a forcefully argued intellectual property opinion by advising the parties "to chill."
In this permissive setting, it's hard to fault Judge Scott Stucky of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces for channeling his inner crime novelist in an opinion he handed down last week. The opening sequence of U.S. v Weston may as well have been lifted from a Raymond Chandler novel. "There was something odd about the electric razor in the bathroom," Stucky wrote.
Continue reading "Legal Fiction" »Posted on June 23, 2009
Obama's Small Donor MythDespite colorful press stories, yet another look at the facts shows that Obama was mostly funded by large donors.Continue reading "Obama's Small Donor Myth" » Posted on November 25, 2008 |
I Totally Voted For . . .Less big government and more legal marijuana.Continue reading "I Totally Voted For . . ." » Posted on November 11, 2008 |
Mystery Presidential Debate TheaterNow with bonus Presidential Debate Theater, Vice Presidential Debate Theater and Convention Debate Theater episodes.Continue reading "Mystery Presidential Debate Theater" » Posted on October 19, 2008 |
Political OddsFor entertainment purposes only. Including gambling.Continue reading "Political Odds" » Posted on April 22, 2009 |
Legal Fiction
The spectacle of judicial writing.Posted on June 23, 2009
Olympic Smackdown Theater
if you don't know which alderman at the table is the tool, then it's you.Posted on June 19, 2009
The Gay Rights Gamble
What happens in California stays in California. At least that was the idea.Posted on June 15, 2009
Court: Campaign Money Mars Bench
A call for public financing of judicial elections.Posted on June 8, 2009
Chicago's Still Valid Gun Ban
The NRA would soon learn that where the Second Amendment is concerned, Chicago has one critical advantage over the District of Columbia.Posted on June 5, 2009
Ready for Reform: Conclusion
Those in power fight to maintain the status quo. They must be removed from power.Posted on June 2, 2009
The Sotomayor Show
The fight is over, but the show is about to begin.Posted on June 1, 2009
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
