The Big Picture and the Closeup

Standing by itself, the growing unavailability of summary judgment might tend to increase, not decrease, the number of trials, but it is coupled with another development that leads the other way, what I call “mediation hell.”

We who stand between the bar and the bench all know who they are: the abusive ones, the indecisive ones, the ones who come to the bench without having read the briefs, the ones who cut the day’s work short in honor of the cocktail hour or tee time, the ones who are so eager to be liked they waste everyone’s time with war stories in chambers, the ones who grow frightened or indignant when properly asked to make new law, the sexist dinosaurs, the inconsistent and mercurial ones, the moody ones, the ones who long ago gave up caring about justice and only take pride now in clearing their dockets, the ones who endlessly delay writing important opinions, the ones who hand so much of their jobs to their clerks there seems to be nothing left over