Judge Richard Posner
He is a rara avis – he writes his own judicial opinions (nearly 3000). Law clerks need not bother with drafts. He writes his own scholarly articles (over 300-plus of them) and erudite books (40-plus). Law clerks need not bother with writing them either.
In a world where judicial “plagiarism” is the accepted norm, Judge Richard Posner is his own man, his own author, and his own thinker. Make of him what you will, but you gotta admire the guy for his hard work, dedication, and integrity.
All of this was made manifest recently in two same-sex marriage cases (Baskin v. Bogan and Wolf v. Walker), which were argued before a panel of the Seventh Circuit on August 26, 2014. The oral arguments in the cases, especially Posner’s interactions with the counsel, have been the talk of the town. In them, Posner minced no words as he cut through the clichéd babble tendered in defense of the state laws therein challenged.
Yesterday, slightly more than a week after those arguments, Judge Posner wrote for the Court in a clear-headed and well-reasoned 40-page opinion.
No cutting and pasting here; no arguments weighed down by the pull of tedious string citations; and no ambiguity of argument. Not surprisingly, the likes of Holmes and Kafka were summoned to buttress the logic of his opinion, this with a dollop of Posner’s own cost-benefit analysis mixed in for persuasive measure. This is not to say, however, that the opinion lacks a good discussion of the relevant case law. Hardly. Rather, my point is that Posner’s work in these cases does not read like some group project or something out of a law school moot court exercise. No! It has style and sophistication.
Now think: could a fresh-out-of-law-school clerk do all that, and in such a short period of time? Probably not . . . unless his name was Richard Posner (on that score, see here).
⇒ Speaking of Judge Posner, next month we plan to post a series of pieces on the good Judge, including a post consisting of questions on 26 topics posed to him by 24 noted legal persona (professors, journalists, and judges), replete with his replies to all of them. Stay tuned.