Which judge is the best writer?
This week, Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern opined that he thought Neil M. Gorsuch’s writing has gone downhill.
“During his tenure on the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Gorsuch produced a number of witty, lucid, and pithy opinions,” Stern wrote. “But since his elevation to the Supreme Court, Gorsuch’s prose has curdled into a glop of cutesy idioms, pointless metaphors, and garbled diction that’s exhausting to read and impossible to take seriously.”
Stern wonders if Gorsuch is trying to emulate the late Antonin Scalia, who “was a writer of extraordinary verve.” (Slate has previously praised Scalia’s writing.)
This week, we’d like to ask you: Which judge is the best writer? He or she may be living or dead, active or retired. And appellate and state-court judges are also worthy of consideration.
Answer in the comments.
Read the answers to our previous question (and see our gallery of lawyers’ handicrafts): Do you knit or create other handiwork?
Featured answer:
Posted by LAG: “Yes! When my writer’s block is especially bad, I have found that doing something creative (sewing, knitting, refinishing furniture) helps. It seems that I have a limit of how much verbal activity my brain can handle before it shuts down until I’ve spent time doing nonverbal activities. I don’t know if there’s any science behind it; I just know what works for me. I’ve also learned that if I fail to pay attention to my need to feed my creative side, I can end up in a deep depression which shuts down both my verbal and creative sides.”
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