{"id":6126,"date":"2009-07-15T19:34:49","date_gmt":"2009-07-16T00:34:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=6126"},"modified":"2009-07-15T20:51:31","modified_gmt":"2009-07-16T01:51:31","slug":"judicial-verbosity-%e2%80%93-it%e2%80%99s-not-easy-being-green","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/07\/judicial-verbosity-%e2%80%93-it%e2%80%99s-not-easy-being-green\/","title":{"rendered":"Judicial Verbosity \u2013 It\u2019s Not Easy Being Green"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"paper-mill\"An article, \u201cConciseness in Legal Writing,\u201d by my colleague Lisa Hatlen in the June 2009 issue of Wisconsin Lawyer<\/em> [at 21] got me thinking.\u00a0 My conclusion: I am surprised that \u201cgreen\u201d organizations do not picket at various appellate courthouses in this country, especially in Madison, Wisconsin.\u00a0 A lot of trees are paying a price for judicial verbosity.<\/p>\n

It took Judge Benjamin Cardozo about two and a half pages to write Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad<\/em>, 248 N.Y. 339, 162 N.E. 99 (1928). Less than forty years later, it took Justice Roger Traynor only about one page more to write Greenman v. Yuba Power Products<\/em>, 59 Cal.2d 57, 377 P.2d 897 (1963). Shortly thereafter, here in Wisconsin, it took Justice Bruce Beilfuss only eight pages to write Dippel v. Sciano<\/em>, 37 Wis.2d 443, 155 N.W.2d 55 (1967). All three are landmark opinions in their respective jurisdictions, with the first two having national status. [All references here are to West reporter pages.]\u00a0 <\/p>\n

In 1978 volume 83 of the second series of the Wisconsin Reporter was published. The average opinion length of Wisconsin Supreme Court cases in that volume was a bit under twelve and a quarter pages. The longest opinion was thirty-nine and a half pages. Twenty years later in 2008, the average length of the court\u2019s opinions in volume 312 of the same reporter was a bit over fifty pages. The longest was eighty-four. On July 14, a unanimous court decided a relatively easy issue, but there were also two concurring opinions going on and on about an issue not even before the court. [2009 WI 78] WHY?!<\/p>\n

It is obvious that the advent of computers and word processing has had an impact on the length of judicial opinions today. \u00a0<\/span>Now, a jurist need not worry about asking an administrative assistant to retype significant portions of an opinion after editing.\u00a0 <\/span>The jurist need not proof read various revised copies of an opinion or ask a law clerk to do so.\u00a0 <\/span>Now it is easy for a jurist to pull quotes from half a dozen or more authorities that support his or her position, instead of one.\u00a0 <\/span>With computerized legal research, the quoted material can be pulled from its original source and easily placed into the opinion \u2013 no retyping or proof reading involved.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, today\u2019s appellate jurist should be able to make a concise statement of involved facts; state the issue or issues posed; and, apply old law or fashion new law to resolve the case in a lot less space than they are taking.\u00a0 <\/span>Sometimes one comes away from examining a court\u2019s advance sheets with the impression that the various jurists on the court are playing a form of \u201ccan you top this\u201d as to opinion page length: \u201cMine was seventy pages long, yours was only sixty.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verbosity reduction would be a boon to the bar.\u00a0 <\/span>The cost to clients for legal research could be reduced.\u00a0 <\/span>It would also ease the minds of law faculty members who like to have their students read and analyze cases other than the highly edited ones that appear in casebooks. \u00a0<\/span>This is especially so in Wisconsin due to the diploma privilege.\u00a0 <\/span>Professors seeking tenure could avoid concern about \u201cassigns too much outside work\u201d appearing on their evaluations by students.<\/p>\n

Now some may say it is strange for the co-author of a two volume treatise on punitive damages to be a critic of the length of other peoples writing.\u00a0 <\/span>That work, however, has twenty-four chapters and attempts to analyze various aspects of the law in each jurisdiction in the country.\u00a0 <\/span>Law firms and lawyers need not buy it or study annual supplements or chapter revisions.\u00a0 <\/span>They do, however, have to review advance sheets of opinions of the courts in their jurisdictions to stay abreast of changes in the law and attempt to understand those changes.\u00a0 <\/span>Jurists should follow the advice often given to speakers at luncheons or dinners:\u00a0 <\/span>Be brief and be seated!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An article, \u201cConciseness in Legal Writing,\u201d by my colleague Lisa Hatlen in the June 2009 issue of Wisconsin Lawyer [at 21] got me thinking.\u00a0 My conclusion: I am surprised that \u201cgreen\u201d organizations do not picket at various appellate courthouses in this country, especially in Madison, Wisconsin.\u00a0 A lot of trees are paying a price for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judges-judicial-process","category-legal-writing","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6126\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}