The law is not a machine. We should stop pretending that it is.

Rules matter. So do judgment, institutional humility, and the candid recognition that doctrine never applies itself.

Notes from the record

CourtsJuly 30, 20268 min. read

The emergency docket is becoming ordinary. That should bother everyone.

Speed can be necessary. But decisions made quickly, with thin records and compressed briefing, should not quietly become the judiciary’s default mode.

Read note

Emergency rulings sometimes require speed. The danger begins when emergency procedure ceases to feel exceptional—when a thin record and compressed briefing no longer produce corresponding caution in the court’s language.

A court can act quickly without speaking finally. The institutional virtue is not hesitation for its own sake; it is matching the breadth of the holding to the quality of the process that produced it.

Civil ProcedureJuly 22, 20266 min. read

The hidden argument inside every discovery dispute

Most discovery fights are not really about a request or an objection. They are competing accounts of what the case is—and what it ought to be allowed to become.

Read note

Discovery letters present themselves as arguments over nouns: a custodian, a date range, a category of documents. Underneath is usually a dispute about narrative and trust.

The advocate who sees that layer can write a shorter motion. Explain what the request has to do with the pleaded case, what it will cost, and what the other side has already said about it. The rest is often noise.

Legal CultureJuly 14, 20265 min. read

A short defense of procedural modesty

Procedure is often dismissed as the part of law that gets in the way. More often, it is the part that keeps power honest.

Read note

A rule that slows a decision may be doing moral work. Notice, a record, a deadline, and an opportunity to respond are mundane devices for distributing power fairly.

Procedure should not become an idol. But before calling it technicality, ask whose voice the technicality permits to be heard—and whose discretion it requires to be explained.

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Courts
Civil Procedure
Legal Writing
Judicial Craft
The Profession

The opening argument

August 4, 2026 · 8 min. read

Doctrine never applies itself.

Lawyers are drawn to the metaphor of law as machinery. It promises a world in which the correct inputs produce the correct result—and in which judgment can be mistaken for inevitability.

But a rule does not select the facts that matter. It does not decide how broadly to describe a precedent, which analogy is most faithful, or whether an exception has swallowed its justification. People do that. Often conscientiously. Never mechanically.

Rules discipline judgment. They do not eliminate it.

This is not an argument against rules. Quite the opposite. A candid account of judgment makes legal reasoning more accountable because it requires the decision-maker to identify the choice, defend it, and accept its consequences.

The best opinions do not announce that the answer was obvious. They show why one answer is better—textually, doctrinally, and institutionally—while treating the rejected argument as something an intelligent person might actually believe.

Filed in Judicial Craft

Editorial position

Read cases closely. Describe opponents fairly. Distrust slogans. Separate what the law is from what we wish it were. Leave room to be persuaded.

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