A Finer Point
Judging, Law & Culture
A Poem: Substance Abuse Trial (PDF)
by Jane Mead
Vol. 106 No. 1 (2022) | Necessarily EngagedSubstance Abuse Trial He mispronounces you, the judge, rhyming your first with your second name, making you into something ridiculous: Gillis Willis Mead. But you stand as still as they […]
Judging, Law & Culture
Learned Hand’s Spirit of Liberty: A Lesson for Our Times
Vol. 105 No. 3 (2021) | Leaving AfghanistanChief Judge D. Brooks Smith of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit reflects on the lessons of unity and tolerance embedded in Judge Learned Hand’s famous “Spirit of Liberty” speech.
Law & Culture
The Moral Order of Perry Mason’s Universe
by Jacqui Shine
Vol. 105 No. 2 (2021) | Judicial IndependenceWhen it premiered on CBS in 1957, Perry Mason represented the birth of the television courtroom procedural. For decades, Mason, a criminal defense attorney who almost always emerged from the court victorious, […]
Judging, Law & Culture
An Immigrant Judge’s Ode to Naturalization Ceremonies
by Nancy Joseph
Vol. 105 No. 1 (2021) | The Courts HeldAbove: Judge Joseph in 2019 with her 92-year-old “adoptive” mother, Uctorieuse Destin, on the day Judge Joseph presided over Destin’s naturalization ceremony. COVID-19 has impacted all aspects of life, including […]
Court Administration, Judging, Federal Courts, Constitutional Law
Empty Chairs
Vol. 104 No. 3 (2020-21) | Judges on the MarchThe sudden deaths of United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Associate Justice Antonin Scalia ignited political firestorms regarding the appropriate timeline for confirming a new justice […]
Court Administration
Typography for Judges
Vol. 104 No. 2 (2020) | Coping with COVIDNot so long ago, the prevailing standard for typography in opinions and briefs was atrocious. The entire profession seemed to believe that the way to make a document look lawyerly […]
Court Administration, State Courts
Courts Must Lead in the Crisis of Addiction
by Loretta H. Rush and Deborah Taylor Tate
Vol. 104 No. 1 (2020) | A Clearer ViewLast year, more Americans died of opioid overdoses than of many cancers, gunshot wounds, or even car crashes. In fact, by at least one metric, the epidemic is more dire […]
Court Administration, Federal Courts
Shattering Glass Ceilings from the Bench
by Charles Hall
Vol. 103 No. 3 (2019) | Fees, Fines, and BailFederal Judge Sylvia Rambo first thought of a legal career in the 1940s when her school bus drove by a local law school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. “It was like a […]
Law & Culture, Technology
The Public Domain: A Grand Reopening
Vol. 103 No. 1 (2019) | Navigating Rough SeasIn 2019, for the first time in 20 years, a trove of creative works published in 1923 entered the U.S. public domain. Why the hiatus? These works were set to […]