“Judges as Persuasive Storytellers,” With U.S. Judge Stephanos Bibas

All right, I think we can get started here. I'm just going to briefly introduce our wonderful learning speaker, Judge Bevis, of the third circuit court of appeals. The judges have an amazing legal career and I'm sure you're all familiar with it. I'll say a couple quick points. The judge proves that those who can do can also teach because he argued six cases in front of the US Supreme Court on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania Law School Clinic, where he also taught criminal procedure and a number of other related topics. He's an enormously influential scholar in that field and he's working actually to influence my own thinking about a number of topics that I do research on myself. We have in common also, going back earlier to his career arc, that we worked for the same boss at one time, namely, Justice Kennedy. And I think Justice Kennedy's voice echoes in my mind sometimes when I think about the topic that the judge is going to address today, which is judicial writing, judicial rhetoric, and the crafting of narrative and opinions. I also just say, ever so briefly, that the judge's influence as a jurist in recent years has been phenomenal. There are many people, many observers, many judges, many practitioners who look to the judge's writing, look to the strength of his reason, look to the clarity of his expression. And I think he's really a load star now for legal culture in a very broad and deep sense in our legal system. So it's with special, the light, pride, joy, and gratitude that I want to welcome Judge Vivas to the podium. Thank you. Thank you, Richard, for that generous introduction. Thank you to UVA for hosting me and the participants in this wonderful conference that Richard and Walt have organized. So my talk today is judges as persuasive storytellers. And I want you to think back to the 1L legal curriculum. Judicial opinions need to be boring. Go back to Benjamin Cardoso's classic, and Paul's grab versus Long Island Railroad. It's been 30 years since I had that in 1L. It's still stuck in my brain. It's gripping. He immediately draws the reader in, laying out what happened on that train platform in crisp sentences. His narrative arc is tight, dramatic, culminates in the unexpected, having those fireworks knock over the scales of the other end of the platform and go and hit Paul's graph. He does all that in a single paragraph. And then in the next paragraph, he explains why no one was negligent towards Paul's graph. Couple more paragraphs. Go and then refute the arguments that Paul's graph was making and uses vivid hypos to show where her theories would lead. Then there's a fifth one that explains how negligence more generally has to be towards in relation to a particular person. And the sixth and final paragraph notes, the court doesn't need to get the approximate causation. The whole thing's 2,400 words long. None of the languages flashy. The case is a century old, but we still assign it the first year law students to this day. It teaches, it persuades, by telling stories. Then go reading an opinion from a continental European tribunal. I used to read a bunch of cases from the European Court of Justice. You could go to the European Court of Human Rights. There's a single opinion for the court. No concurrence or dissent. No judge signs it as author. It has this impersonal bureaucratic face and the language matches it. The paragraphs are numbered. View if any segues link them. At all too often, the writing is detergents. It's just joined it. It reads as if it were written by committee. We got all the raw ingredients for a story, but there's no baker who took the time to need and bake those ingredients into a coherent loaf. And now come to today in America, but look at a typical patent case. I've been doing just a little bit of this lately. It is signed by author. There might be separate opinions, but the rest of the same is true as the European ones. There's no theme. There's no storyline. The paragraphs are numbered staccatos. The prose is very technical. Understandable. Only by those initiated into this priestly can't. The block quotations are these bricks of text in the way. The footnotes are the stumbling blocks. And on and on and on. And the reader wonders, what's the point here? Now, it doesn't have to be that way. Almost everything we litigators and judges do involves telling a story. We don't teach that as much as we should, but I try to make that point to my students. It may be the story of a crime. It may be the story of a contract dispute. It may even be the story of a rissa. To tell that story well, we've got to relearn how to hold the reader's attention. How to throw him in, we must recover Cardozo's craft. So just now I wrote my first patent opinion on the merits. And the case involves a pill, a delayed release anti-inflammatory that treats acne. And so I tried to do it as a story. First, I tell the story of the pill. The pill travels through the digestive system. It gradually breaks down in the body. And why that gradual breakdown, the etheric coating and delayed release matters for the disease it treats, rosacea. And then I tell all another drug maker came up with a slightly different relation. She's just kind of engineering around the patent. And that the inventor sued who got the plaintiff's expert narrating how the pill works in the gut. We have the defendant's expert countering with a different understanding what's going on in the gut. And then explain why I don't think the plaintiff's expert's credible and how the plaintiff's theory is strained. To do all that, I had to weave the facts together into a story to hit all the points of the governing legal test. While flagging holes, flagging inconsistencies in the evidence, I used headings to telegraph where each part and section was going. What I was ruling, I didn't all win 20 pages. No footnotes moved that abstruse language of the actual patent claims themselves into a single one-page appendix. The final products of patent opinion that I hope an average reader can understand and stay awake reading. Now people in general, rhetoric is a bad name. People think rhetoric's a flowery frill. It's icing. You layer on top of the cake to sweeten the dessert. But rhetoric's the art of persuasion. And it shouldn't be a sugary afterthought. We should be building it in. Fundamentally, rhetoric's how we reach the reader or the listener. That makes us attend to our audience. Our biggest shortcoming is legal writers. Is we neglect our audience, or we don't do the work we need to do to reach it. So I'm going to start by arguing who I think our audience is or should be. We judges may write for the lawyers in the case, other judges, or other lawyers who practice in that subject area. We may also think about the losing lid again. But even though we're public servants, we seldom attend to who's that public who we're serving. In our democracy, I'm going to argue our most basic audiences with the people of the United States. Our authority derives from them to them we have to be accountable. So once we figure out our audience, how do we reach them? I'm going to go on to talk after that about how we can our audiences will learn best if we tell them lucid, coherent, persuasive stories. Some judges famously did that. Think of the chestnuts from Holmes or Cardoso that we read in contracts. We read in torts, we read in con law. But we've developed bad habits and many of those habits stand in the way. So we have to relearn the right early craft of narrative. That means protagonists, point of view, plot, theme, resolution, and so on. We need to think at the macro level, what's our theme and point, the mid-level of our sections and paragraphs, the micro level of our sentence structures and word choices. And to do that, we ourselves should be reading widely in fiction, in nonfiction, as well as the law. Of course, not all rivalry skills and techniques work well in opinions. I love William Monk. But the idea of the sentences that roll on on like the Mississippi and the digressions in the tangent, that doesn't work here. I love a good mystery story. But you don't save the reveal until the last chapter where her cruel corral on this marble finally identifies all of them. That doesn't work for what we're trying to do here. But still, all their genres have a lot to teach us. So do great judges have come before us. So do the great brief and opinion writers of today. So I want to make an introductory note. And I think it's an interesting symposium we have. I understand a recovering academic, I like to say, that some of those in this symposium are criticizing judges' moves from the outside, sometimes even accusing us of slight a hand. That external perspective is legitimate. Maybe sometimes it's unsharedable. But I'm not taking issue with that. My experience as a judge, though, is that we judges rarely have ever cloak or disemble. Our rhetorical shortcomings are mostly unintentional. I can hear the academic saying, maybe he's cloaking or disembleing by saying they don't cloak or disembleing. Of course, I can't prove that. But even if you doubt that claim, take this essay on its own terms from within the internal perspective. As long as a judge aspires to write well and democratically, I argue. Here are some of the things we should attend to and some of the things we should avoid. Number one, addressing the people. Schools, unfortunately, no longer teach rhetoric. It used to be a staple of the trivia classical education. And it shows few speakers and few writers start by asking, whom am I addressing? It's not enough for us judges to figure out our own answers. We write opinions to people, but to whom? Now, most obviously, we write to the lawyers in the case, as if we were grading the briefs, marking each argument right or wrong. But writing just that way seems like insight baseball. It might suggest we just have to knock down all the obstacles that stand in the way of getting to the result. Responding to arguments is necessary, but it's not enough. We judges, we also write for the litigants. Each party deserves a stand court. It's opportunity to be heard. So we have to make sure the losing party knows. We understand his case. We understand his arguments on their own terms. And charitably, I hope, before explaining why that person loses. We judges also write for other judges and lawyers too. We make law interstitially in the course of applying and harmonizing existing law. So I'm an appellate judge. I ought to explain to the district judges in my circuit what's the rule I'm announcing? How are you supposed to apply it? What do you need to do to follow it next time? I hope that lawyers and scholars and law students can grasp how to make sense of this particular corner of law. By the way, I consider it pretty high praise that some district judges in my courthouse say, thank you now, I know what to do next time. But the fact that they're so eager about it implies to me that we're not often enough doing that, that it's kind of uncommon, even though that should be an important mission of a judicial opinion. But these other constituencies obscure what I argue is our most fundamental honest, we the people. We the people of the United States in our democracy under our Constitution are the source of my judicial power. I need to keep reminding myself, I'm a servant of the public. There's a reason I had that oath on the back wall of my office and I see it all the time. I'm not elected. After I'm confirmed, there's no democratic check on me. So I need to ground my reasoning in the Constitution and the laws duly enacted by the people. Alexander Hamilton, Federalist, 78, my power comes not from force for real, but just judgment. If I do that well, the public's going to understand whom to hold accountable. Congress drafted this law, or we need to amend the Constitution or something else. If I do it poorly, I invite suspicion. Maybe I'm sneaking my own will or policy preference ahead of those of the people. So in that sense, and only in that sense I mean, the way I do my job ought to be fundamentally democratic. I do not mean to say that I should be taking popular opinion polls. I don't mean to say I shouldn't reach unpopular results. Many laws protect rights and minority. My job is to stand against the political wins and transient passions. But what I do mean is I ought to be explaining why the law, not politics or personal preference, dictates my reasoning and outcomes as much as humanly possible. Of course, it's an ideal. We are human beings, but to show that we are striving as much as we humanly can to do that. And in order to do that, I have to heed how I use rhetoric and how I tell stories that the people can understand. So if I talk about my audience, let me talk to you now about the benefits of writing clear persuasive stories. So we judges. We're already writing for parties. We're writing for the lawyers. We're writing for other judges. If we add the public to the top of that list, that takes work. It takes a shift in our perspective. But the extra effort I'm arguing is worth it. It helps all the stakeholders understand our work and use it. So first of all, it helps the public better understand what's the law and what a judge is doing. The law is often opaque to ordinary Americans. Few of them have lawyers to advise on what to do. When a judicial opinion speaks clearly, citizens understand more likely what their legal rights are, what their duties are. So accessible writing gives them better notice, helps them give them due process, helps us reach our core audience. Now, I'm not going to overstate my point, of course. Most ordinary people don't read most opinions. But some people read some of them, by the way. It's kind of surprising sometimes how randomly people are looking into some area and come across something that I would have thought would be an obscure opinion. And when the people do, but especially on matters in public interest, accessibility is crucial. And when it comes to explaining, narrative helps us to explain clearly. It's familiar. Everyone grew up reading and hearing stories. So if we structure our legal opinions and style them as stories, that makes them more accessible. It makes them the narrative. It organizes our points into a coherent whole. It makes them digestible. We explain principles, statutes, and precedents in ways that reassure citizens that we're fulfilling our role as public servants. We can show we're not just politicians and robes. We can explain why citizens shouldn't just focus on which results they like. And we constrain politicians and talking heads ability to denigrate our handiwork as just politics and disguise. But it doesn't just help the public. It also helps lawyers help some advise their clients. Makes their jobs easier too. So lawyers don't have to spend as much effort on legal research and publishing over precedents. Even lawyers who are maybe less able or less bright can still understand and advise well. It makes the law more determinate and it teaches good writing habits. And that's an important thing. It counteracts our profession's long standing problem with bad writing. So Miguel de Servante has wrote this 400 years ago in the original novel, Banque Hote. But do not give it to a lawyer's clerk to write. For they use a legal hand that Satan himself will not understand. That's quite the indictment. Finally, writing persuasive narratives helps judges to do our jobs better. Now, clear story telling helps us. That sounds paradoxical. After all, it makes us work harder. It's demanding. But it pushes us to up our game. So if we make our opinions clearer, we improve them. A mentor taught me fuzzy writing conceals fuzzy thinking, writing clearly forces a judge to figure out which issues matter, what flaws or gaps there are in the reasoning. It makes us put our cards on the table. Readers can see the problems with opinions and criticize them. That transparency forces us to do our craft. And here, I think I can slip in and aside, my complaint about some academics and some academic discourse is that when you go and read people in certain schools, there's a certain obfuscation that comes from a very technical vocabulary. And often, I think the emperor has few clothes. And if, in fact, they were translating it into English, they'd see, oh, I just dressed this up into polycyllabic nonsense. Storytelling by contrast forces us to clarify. We have to figure out our points better. We have to buttress the better. We have to weed out what doesn't advance the storyline of the argument. So the whole that results is greater than the sum of the parts. And a clear opinion has to show that it rests solidly unacceptable sources of law. It makes us harder for us judges to smuggle in our policy preferences even unconsciously. It makes us easier to distinguish what's a claim of expertise from what's democratically elected law. Clear opinions are easier for other judges to understand and follow. It makes it harder for other judges to misapply what we've written. And it helps others to understand and properly build on the law in the books. So now, the third part of my argument, how do you tell a persuasive legal story? We used to live in an oral storytelling culture where this is natural. I don't think it's second nature to people anymore. But I think people recognize a good story when they hear it. To do a job well, I need to convince and persuade, which are slightly different things. My various audiences by telling them stories. My stories need to be clear and compelling enough so non-lawyers can follow them. Like good novelists, I try to show and not just tell them. My tone needs to be neutral and trustworthy. My opinions have to be solidly grounded in fact and law. I show my work. I use authority to make clear I'm following the law. Not being arbitrary or writing my own policy preferences into law. But I'm careful not to clutter my opinions with more authority than needed. There are opinions out there that go rat-a-tat machine gun style with cases as a substitute for reasoning and narrative as opposed to a supplement or support. Whenever possible, there's a protagonist, a theme, and a narrative. And there's just enough foreshadowing. An explanation to guide the reader every step of the way. So I don't think it's right that there should be zero redundancy, a little bit of redundancy in opinion as well as just guide the reader along the way. OK, let's start by talking about the anatomy of an opinion. Start with the introduction. The first line or first paragraph of my opinions may sum up the theme or point of the case. I'll focus the reader's attention. Then the next few try to get a very high level overview of the story and issue, orienting the reader what follows. I summarize the court's holding the key takeaway for future cases. Now, why is that two to four paragraph introduction important? With the decline of print journalism, a few newspapers still have reporters to specialize in covering the court beat. I don't count on a beat reporter to actually understand a complex opinion to do the work and is still looking for the public. Rarely do I have David Lat, my audience, to be able to explain my opinion to non-moyers. Most of the time, I have to write my opinions and conclusions, interest and conclusions almost as press releases, to summarize the key facts principles and holders. After that comes the facts section. I approach the facts like a sculptor, trying to chip away the most inessential parts so the key facts come through. If it doesn't serve the shape of the sculptor, forget rid of it. Readers get lost in the sea of names and exact dates, or worse yet, acronyms. Most cases were all around a few named key named figures and usually a rough time frame is enough. Give the reader the basics, the who, what, when, where, and why. It helps to start the story with a protagonist and usually move chronologically. Use topic sentences to orient the reader to each chunk of narrative. The facts section should be an overview and then more complete details often fit better later on in analyzing or discussing each issue rather than saying everything wants in the facts and then again regurgitating it in the body. It's also helpful to use themes. In a criminal case, it's not a bad idea to highlight the strongest evidence of guilt and any weaknesses or gaps. The message is that the conviction is sound or unsound. In a contract case, explain what the parties agreed to and how or why one side failed to live up to its promises. If a party said one thing before, yet now changes the tune of litigation, flag the inconsistences perhaps quoting the party's own words or contractual language. One of my favorite rhetorical techniques is hoist the other side by its own petal. You don't have to say they're being hypocrites. Just quote the language that's at odds with what they're arguing now. In the procedural history, it lied what doesn't matter. No one cares what number each count bore in the criminal indictment. Mentioned jury instruction only if there's a dispute over it in the case. Name the lawyer only if his conduct is in question. Say because he allegedly gave ineffective assistance to counsel. If the basis for jurisdictions obvious and uncontested, no need to delve into that. It's usually enough just to state the uncontested standard of review in a sentence or two. One shibble at the writing, by the way, is avoid the passive voice. And it's true, the passive voice ledons and dendons prose. But sometimes it helps to keep the spotlight where you want it. In a paragraph that's all about a criminal defendant, it can distract readers to shift the subject to the police who arrested the defendant, the grand jury that indicted him and the petty jury that convicted him. Maybe better just to write the defendant was arrested, convicted, the charge and convicted by the jury of such and such crimes. The legal analysis is the meat of the opinion. Where there are multiple issues, break them down into separate parts, sections, subsections, as needed to create manageable chunks. Usually put the most important issue up front, the least important at the end. But sometimes, of course, there's a jurisdictional issue needs to come before the merits or damages naturally comes after liability. It also normally flows better to first make a formative arguments and then deal with counter arguments towards the end of each section. So explanatory headings help, too. Instead of just saying the contract claim, you could summarize the point, short line. Despite Smith's unilateral mistake, the contract binds him. Then the reader knows what to watch out for and umbrella paragraphs after headings underscore that message for shadowing the points to come. The same, by the way, goes for smaller units of text. Almost every paragraph should have a topic sentence that signposts its point. Yet many legal writers launch straight into citation at the start of each paragraph. In round versus Jones, 1-23, F-4-6-78, 3rd Circuit 2025, the 3rd Circuit, dot, dot, dot, dot. Organized paragraphs not around cases, but around principles for points. Push the authorities down into supporting positions later in the paragraph. If you use mid-sentence citations, they break up the block. The ordinary people just indigestible. I'll tell you, Justice Barrett is a master at guiding readers. As a newer justice, he often has to write dry technical opinions yet she guides her reader through complex subjects with ease. So she had a recent opinion for the court in ZF Automotive versus Luxher. She explained private arbitration panels don't count as foreign or international drug tribunals under discovery statute. Sound pretty dull, right? But she kept the readers on track with a helpful introduction, with ample signposting, with short paragraphs, and instructive topic sentences. Next, let me talk about the craft of writing accessible stories. First, how do you focus and prune an opinion? We judges know it's good to be clear and concise. People can parrot that, but it's harder to do it. So we may not have learned how to do it in practice. As judges, we have more freedom in writing than litigators do. We need to learn how to use that freedom. I was really amazed when I realized, I got a judicial commission on my wall. I don't have to follow the blue book religiously anymore, where it's dumb, or it's going to interrupt the opinion. I can vary from it. I don't have to cover my rear with a footnote for every subsidiary point. Like, it's good to be the king. You know I understand. I mean that metaphorically, not literally. rhetoric includes metaphor. OK, first, in doubt. If in doubt, leave it out. As Judge Pritiman said, the lawyer's greatest weapon is clarity, and its wetstone is succinctness. It's important to show our work. It's important to cover the basis. Judges and clerks may spend hundreds of hours crafting opinions. We have to tease apart each legal issue and put it back together again. But the reader needn't see every dead end that precedes the final draft. Cut what you can cut. Some of the best opinions are shortened to the point. Just as Kavanaugh is especially good at pending crisp opinions. So in just four pages in Veo Madero, he explained why Congress could differentiate between the rates of benefits for Puerto Ricans, and those for residents of the continental states. Similarly, he needed just five pages in full versus US bank to resolve a tricky standing issue under a rissa. The rest of us need to read and learn from such exemplary writing. Also, be judicious about using authority. Many legal rules, like standards of review, they're well known. They're not in dispute. Just use a single short citation to move on. Don't move on at all the authority you've found onto a page. Gathering all the authorities is just the first step of research. The next steps need to involve organizing, culling, distilling. Takes more work, but it's worth it. Don't treat citations as a substitute for analysis and reasoning. I don't care how many magistrate judge opinions a litigate found from the Northern Mariana islands. If it's not binding authority from the Supreme Court on my circuit, it matters only if it's persuasive. So explain what makes it persuasive or delete. We judges can unlearn some of the habits we learned as lawyers. Lawyers are partisans. They need to do more to show their work. That means citing more cases, exploring more tensions. But as a neutral judge, I don't need as many citations, especially for uncontested facts. And as the decider, I can sheer off the tangents and issue footnotes. I can thus tell a cleaner story. True. I still need to cover all the party's arguments. Usually I start by laying out general principles of law in the area. Then I make an affirmative case for a holding, respond to each of the losing side's objections, and then apply the holding to the facts. It's important to attack not straw men, but steel men, and give the other side is best shot before knocking it down. The losing party needs to see. I've treated it fairly and respectfully without sarcasm or snark. Writing gets tricky when one side fails to make or preserve an argument. If that forfeiture is debatable, I might explain why the argument fails in any event. It's also important to bracket issues that were forfeited or not raised by this party, but might win in a future case to flag what we have not decided. I don't want the failings of one party or lawyer to warp the developmental law for others. Also, we need to know how to use our law clerks, these young lawyers, fresh out of law school. They're eager to share with us everything they've dug up. They can be like magpies, collecting shiny cases in the research, proudly bringing them back to show off to their judges. And when we ask them to write first drafts of opinions, we understandably err on the side of including everything we might want to seek. We have both the experience and responsibility to sculpt away everything that doesn't need to be in there. One way to do that is tell clerks not to turn their bench memos into drafts. At arguments, parties concede some points. They focus on others. We can then ensure that our opinions leave those issues aside and get to the heart of what's left. Next, writing simply using plain language. Even the shortest opinions useless if it's written in Latinate legalism. If we're going to speak clearly, we have to combine brevity and simplicity. The very best judges can shoot rigid pose pros in favor of engaging the audience, often not always in a conversational style. The average person needn't read John Smith, Smith, or John. And Jane Doe, Doe, or Jane, come before this honorable court in the above caption case. It's not the right, the plane of Sir John Smith and Jane Doe. Making dense concepts are facts intelligible, tarry, but is worth it. Justice Scalia was a master at doing that with vivid stories. So think about how he described the Establishment Clause doctrine, the lemon test that had given generations to Joseph's head in. Quote, like some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in his grave and shuffles a broad after being repeatedly killed and buried. Lemon stocks are Establishment Clause jurisprudence once again, frightening the little children and school attorneys of the Center Mauritius Union Free School District. Its most recent burial only last term was to be sure not fully six feet under. Now, Justice Scalia's reference to horror movies wasn't a gratuitous top culture film. He had a point to explain why readers should view the lemon test as dead despite recent sightings and why the majority opinion should have discarded it once and for all. Another thing that sets the quip apart from judicial references to say the bachelor or Hamilton the musical, Scalia's quip stands the test of time. The reader need not have seen a specific show. Its colorful imagery shows the reader what she needs to know. Similarly, Justice Scalia had a famous solo descent in Morrison versus Olsen, explaining why insulating an independent prosecutor from the president's oversight threatened the constitutional structure. Quote, this is what this suit is about, power. The allocation of power among Congress, the president, the courts, in such fashion as to preserve the equilibrium the Constitution sought to establish. Frequently, an issue of this sort will come before the court clad so to speak in sheep's clothing, the potential of the asserted principle to effect important change in the equilibrium of powers, not immediately evident. Must be discerned by a careful perceptive reader. But this wolf comes as a wolf. Justice Scalia's story was so effective because he avoided legalese and stuffy language and technical expositions. Instead, he used analogy to great effect, comparing not illegal issues to easy to understand concepts. True, few of us have his neck for a well-honed metaphor, but we can at least aim for his somewhat conversational style. Though there's no one-size-fits-all guide to plane writing, I'll forgive suggestions first. Judges should use short, one or two syllable words. Instead of long Latinate, yet let alone Latin words. Let, rather than permit, gun rather than firearm, car, not vehicle, fair rather than equitable, when you don't mean the technical sense of equity, on its own rather than suisante, and so on. Next, we judges should strike a balance between overly formal language and noticeably slang or excessive colloquialism. Justice Scalia was very intentional about how he did that. Though he used plain ordinary language, he also avoided contractions, seeing them as, quote, in a front to the dignity of the court. Now, this is a judgment call. I respect greatly some judges who do choose to use it, but I likewise avoid contractions in judicial opinions. I don't avoid them in scholarship like this essay, because it's a different audience and a different kind of tone, I think, that's called for. And he, Justice Scalia, load the acronyms as I do. Once complaining about the alphabet soup used to label government agencies. Finally, I think we judges ought to minimize interrupting our pros with citations and long quotations. They distract the reader. Many of the quotations aren't written very well. Most lay readers aren't used to inline citations and judges should avoid the mid-sentence and where possible, group them towards the end of paragraph. So as I said, make kind of the principal point and then botrists it with the citations after that. It won't always work, but sometimes. But that doesn't mean footnotes. Footnotes force the reader's eye down and up, down, and up repeatedly, and that interrupts the flow of reading. Similarly, if you have a long, poorly written quotation, that could be excellent authority, but it's distracted and it's confusing. Block quotations especially often get skipped, they get skimmed. Use them only when the reader needs to see a whole statute, a whole contractual provision, or the like in context. And first, introduce them so the reader knows why they're worth reading and what to look for. When possible, paraphrase instead of quoting or weave several short quoted phrases into your senses. If you follow these suggestions, that might make opinions more accessible and conversational, but still dignified. They demystify the judicial process, they help courts, the citizens hold courts accountable, and they build trust in the judicial process in judges. Next, edit, edit, edit. Opinions need to strike just the right tone of authority, neutrality, and basis in law, offering just enough detail to make sense, to hold readers' interest and to persuade them. That's easy to say, but hard to boil down into rules. The best way to work on these points is to have several people read drafts and offer their own comments. Of course, it helps to set aside a draft and come back to refresh us. But the draft may strike other readers differently. I learned so much from that kind of audience feedback. And if readers lose my thread or the draft presumes knowledge they don't have, they can work, these other readers can work collectively to improve it. That's part of writing from for the reader's perspective. As long as we judge and retain our authorial voice and final say, we should welcome feedback to keep improving our handiwork. That's how I use my law clerks. I use all my clerks to focus test my opinions. How do they come up? Does this phrase work or not? And really, getting to see it from different people's points of view helps me to get out the parts that are even a little bit opaque. Next, read good stories. To tell good stories, it helps to read good stories. There are some excellent stories in the best opinions and briefs. So as an advocate, and now as a jurist, Chief Justice Roberts is a masterful writer. Take, for example, the way that one of his briefs introduces from when he was an advocate. A zinc mine at the center of an environmental dispute. And by the way, this case full of lots of technical environmental regulation. But the oasis introduced by this description in the facts, quote, for generations in Nupiat Eskimos, hunting and fishing into the long mountains in Northwest Alaska, had been aware of orange and red-stained creek beds in which fish could not survive. In the 1960s, a bush pilot and part-time prospector by the name of Bob Baker noticed striking discolorations in the hills and creek beds of a wide valley in the western to long. Unable to land his plane on the rocky tundra to investigate, Baker alerted the US Geological Survey. Exploration of the area eventually led to the discovery of a wealth of zinc and lead deposits. Although Baker died before the significance of his observations became known, his faithful traveling companion, an Irish setter who often flew shotgun, was immortalized by a geologist who dubbed the creek Baker-Spotted Red Dog Creek. So in just a few sentences, now Chief Justice Roberts presents an engaging and complete story. Through it, he gets the reader to care about the origins of the Red Dog mind, something that might otherwise be boring or technical. And he suddenly conveys the message that local and state officials have special knowledge about the mind, an idea that matters for his briefs core legal argument. Chief Justice Roberts thus shows us how legal writers can harness the power of a wealthful story. But it's also good to read non-legal writers. Reading Hemingway say reminds us how important it is to choose the right forceful verbs to make our points. Dickens portrays characters whom readers care about. Tom Walt lets his subjects hoist themselves by their own foibles. Of course, their genres are different, and their goal is not to leave the reader with a crisp rule of law. Still, we can glean lessons from them as we find our own voices. In some, from our earliest years, we humans learn from stories. We follow their characters and plot. We care if their details are convincing. Stories organize facts into coherent narratives that may make a point. Truth legal storytelling uses authority and reasoning differently from fiction. But it too can involve a protagonist, other characters, a plot, and a theme. That's an effective way to explain, persuade, and convince. I've argued that judges should write for our core audience, we the people. That means speaking through clear, concise opinions that tell intelligible stories. By honing that craft, we can better persuade and convince not only litigants of lawyers and other judges, but also the people that our judgments are fair, impartial, and solidly grounded in law. Thank you.