Year in Review, Take Two

One yearTwo years ago today, I started this site with the following statement: “An attorney should always put a statement of the questions presented at the very beginning of any brief unless the rules forbid it.” In that opening post, I tried to map an approach that would guide content then unwritten:

… Setting aside the notion of persuasion, the judicial posture is a useful one for approaching the world.

On the national level of the American governmental apparatus, judges usually are considered passive entities. A court cannot reach out and take or create a case that is not properly before it, nor can it concoct a set of hypothetical facts and issue a decision based on those facts. Most of the time, courts cannot even rule on arguments or contentions the parties do not raise. This detached position encourages patience and allows one to receive an orderly presentation of considerations before making a decision. And judges must make some kind of decision. Judges are passive in posture, though not in nature. At the very least, they must issue a judgment– a verdict, decision, or ruling. By convention or rule, they need to be prepared to defend their decisions verbally or in writing. This requirement of eventual and substantial action reinforces and enhances the passive phase and its attendant values. Knowledge that one must later decide focuses the passive mind and encourages patience to allow for a full understanding of the matters at hand. There is mutually reinforcing energy between listening and deciding such that nothing is mere talk, and chatter has little purpose. As usual, time is a foundational consideration: listen, then decide, then defend, and then listen again.

Resource limitations are a part of our condition. When we choose to utilize our limited resources, we want to do so effectively. This applies to mental resources as much as it does to fuel and finances. Regardless of a resource’s renewability, other limitations will constrain its expenditure or utilization. Efficacy and efficiency are the best responses to this fact of limitation, here represented by the phrase “in the real world.” Many scholars are feeding their families today because of their ability to operate (in varying degrees) detached from the real world. Ideas are important. Theory is important. That’s the point of what you are reading and will read here. The seemingly unavoidable limitations on resources demand that we root ourselves in reality, while allowing ourselves to discuss, critique, and reevaluate that reality. This is a chance to find out what happens when keeping it real goes right.

What about the questions presented? Wasn’t that where this was supposed to begin? It was, and it is. Justice Scalia and Brian Garner emphasize the primacy of questions presented because those questions shape everything that follows. I’m not exactly sure what will follow, but I have some ideas and I know you do too. It’s time to start asking questions that matter.

My goal has been to try to ask real questions, not leading or rhetorical ones, in an attempt to reveal something about what underlies our assumptions, ideas, and viewpoints. I’ve tried to at least imply a question in every post, and where I did not, my approach was to put forth a position that invited responsive comments, of which the site received many. With nearly 3,500over 9,700 views in the first yeartwo years, I think we’re off to a good start.

Thank you for your readership and feedback.