Ketchup-Bottle Type of Argument

We find this to be a ketchup-bottle type of argument: it looks quite full, but it is remarkably difficult to get anything useful out of it.

Judge Bruce M. Selya, The Dartmouth Review v. Dartmouth College, 889 F.2d 13, 18 (1st Cir. 1989)

Judge Rubin wrote opinions in pro se cases

Alvin's habit of writing opinions in nearly all pro se cases reflects one aspect of his civility. He often deprecated the use of long opinions in routine cases, but he ordinarily declined to enter one line dispositions. “Let us write a little,” he would say, and he would then succinctly but painstakingly explain the court's ruling, especially to pro se and under-represented litigants. 

Edith Hollan Jones, A Farewell to Judge Alvin B. Rubin, 70 Tex. L. Rev. 1, 5 (1991)

Alvin's habit of writing opinions in nearly all pro se cases reflects one aspect of his civility. He often deprecated the use of long opinions in routine cases, but he ordinarily declined to enter one line dispositions. “Let us write a little,” he would say, and he would then succinctly but painstakingly explain the court's ruling, especially to pro se and under-represented litigants.

Edith Hollan Jones, A Farewell to Judge Alvin B. Rubin, 70 Tex. L. Rev. 1, 5 (1991)

Alvin's habit of writing opinions in nearly all pro se cases reflects one aspect of his civility. He often deprecated the use of long opinions in routine cases, but he ordinarily declined to enter one line dispositions. “Let us write a little,” he would say, and he would then succinctly but painstakingly explain the court's ruling, especially to pro se and under-represented litigants.

Edith Hollan Jones, A Farewell to Judge Alvin B. Rubin, 70 Tex. L. Rev. 1, 5 (1991)

Presiding over a trial is a remarkable experience

“The whole experience of presiding over a trial in court is a remarkable experience. You see every kind of human emotion and human value expressed and you see people in very tense situations and you listen in detail to some remarkable problems and situations of every kind. . . . You have an inside look at crime and the kind of criminal behavior that we’ve all wrong our hands in an effort to stop. . . . There are moments of great pathos in a courtroom and there are moments of levity and there are moments of boredom.”

Sandra Day O’Connor, quoted in Joan Biskupic, Sandra Day O’Connor: How the First Woman on the Supreme Court Became Its Most Influential Justice (New York: Harper Perennial, 2006), pp. 65-66 (quoting Linda Kauss, “A Day in Court With Judge Sandra O’Connor,” Phoenix Gazette, Sept. 11, 1974).

Salem witch trials compared with European witch persecutions

Massachusetts has been a target for caustic comment for centuries because of the hysterical and brutal outburst of the witchcraft trials and executions in 1692. But it is forgotten how short it was—but five months—with only about a score of hangings, as compared with the thousands burned, hanged or drowned in Spain, France, Germany, England and Scotland in much longer periods. And nowhere, except in connection with Salem, did any of the actors in the tragedy have the moral courage to admit that they were wrong.

Frank Grinnell, secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society, at the 1942 dedication of a State House mural depicting the repentance of Judge Samuel Sewall. Quoted in Eve LaPlante, Salem Witch Judge: The Life and Repentance of Samuel Sewall (New York: HarperCollins e-books: 2007), p. 1

A judge long-winded but respected

Dr. Clitheroe was a distinguished lawyer respected beyond the borders of his native Derbyshire, and accordingly regarded s an asset to the bench despite his garrulity which arose from a belief that the validity of a judgement was in proportion to the length of time spent in arriving at it. Every nuance of a case with which he was concerned was scrutinised in meticulous detail, previous cases researched and discussed and the relevant law propounded. And if the dictates of an ancient philosopher—particularly Plato or Socrates—could be seen as adding weight to the argument, they were produced. But despite the circuity of the journey, his eventual decision was invariably reasonable and there were few defendants who would not have felt unfairly discriminated against if Dr. Clitheroe had not paid them the compliment of at least one hour's incomprehensible dissertation when they appeared before him. 

P. D. James, Death Comes to Pemberley (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2011), p. 79

Lousy correspondent

DEAREST TELLY FROM DAY TO DAY ONE THING OR ANOTHER PUTS ME OFF WRITING YOU I AM ASHAMED OF MYSELF . . . PAY NO ATTENTION TO MY SILENCE AND WRITE ME ALWAYS.

Felix Frankfurter, telegram to his sister, Estelle (Telly), Dec. 13, 1935
quoted in Harvard Law Bulletin, Summer 1999, at 32

Protesting versus litigating

The desegregation of Montgomery's buses had not come about as a result of the heroic protest by the city's masses. It was the fruit of the NAACP's lawsuit stemming from Rosa Parks's arrest. "All that walking for nothing!" the NAACP's chief legal strategist, Thurgood Marshall, said disparagingly. He had missed the larger truth, however. The legal victory highlighted the flaws of the NAACP's strategy of patience since the decision affected only the buses of Montgomery; theoretically, every other community in the South would have to take to the courts for similar relief. The NAACP's legal triumphs would henceforth be a preamble to the civil rights movement—the book of an Old Testament prophet. The bus boycott had introduced a new gospel. The struggle had moved out of the hands of the talented tenth and into the streets.

Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (2001, with 2012 Afterword), p. 95.

(The case was Browder v. Gayle.)

Hugo Black, Klansman

Of the many excuses Hugo Black later gave for joining the Klan, the one that seemed most outlandish was probably the most accurate: The hooded brotherhood of white supremacists was also the liberal insurgent wing of the Democratic Party. The Klan was the flawed consummation of the have-nots' long flirtation with power, which had begun with the signal political phenomenon of the post-bellum South: Populism.

Diane McWhorter, Carry Me Home: Birmingham, Alabama: The Climactic Battle of the Civil Rights Revolution (2001, with 2012 Afterword), p. 17.

Opinions not a matter of opinion

Modern courts can be innovative, but judges are reluctant to pick ideas entirely out of thin air. It's always much safer to follow some precedent, preferably an opinion by a prestigious court or at least a well-known judge. But, alas, there is a point in the development of any legal doctrine where there is no judicial precedent; some court has to be the first. That is a very uncomfortable position for a judge to be in: You write an opinion and have nothing to cite. Paradoxically, opinions are not supposed to be a matter of opinion; they are supposed to reflect the law, and this means at least someone out there who does law is supposed to agree with you.

Judge Alex Kozinski, Who Gives a Hoot About Legal Scholarship?, 37 Hous. L. Rev. 295, 307 (2000)