Advisory Opinions - Live from the University of Michigan

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

Sarah and David tape a live episode at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan and they have a special guest: Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Chad Readler. After making it very clear on how to pronounce the judge’s name, David and Sarah discuss what the judge look for in clerks, his career as a judge and at the Department of Justice, and Wolverine football. Stick around to the end to hear where the judge comes down on David and Sarah’s great law school debate.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey, you paid for it, so keep it. Try the other side. Get started at Fizz.ca. If you need some time to think it over, here's five seconds. Certain conditions apply. Details at Fizz.ca. You ready? I was born ready. Welcome to the Advisory Opinions live podcast edition at the University of Michigan. I'm David French with Sarah Isker. And Sarah, we've got a very special guest.

We do. We have Judge Chad Radler with us. It is spelled R-E-A-D-L-E-R. And we've talked about him before. And mostly what I want people to know, especially those who might appear before him or interview with him for clerkships, is that it's pronounced Raidler, not Reedler. And for years after meeting him, having the correct pronunciation explained to me, I would still have people go, no, it's Reedler. And I would second guess myself.

And I would actually text him and go like, just to check. It's like, actually, Raidler, like this isn't some long running prank. So, yes, I am now firm in my conviction that you have been telling me the truth the whole time and that is Radler. But the first question has to be, we have some housekeeping to get to, but to you, what percentage of advocates pronounce your name correctly? That's a good question. First off, welcome to Ann Arbor. Thank you. And welcome to Michigan Law School, the best law school in the country. Well, it's always great to come to places that have second-tier college football teams.

They outnumber us, David. I know, I know. But, you know, speaking truth to power is important. I live in Columbus, Ohio, so I'm used to hearing that kind of thing, but not in Ann Arbor. He's got his Michigan gear on, y'all. You're undergrad and law school here, so you spent seven years here. It's a great, great town. To answer your question, probably half and half, I would say, but I do appreciate the ones who say it correctly. That might be the lowest of any judge on the bench. Maybe. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to appreciate that or if that's a criticism,

but it might be true. No, it's just sort of fascinating because it's not an intimidating name. It's not Srinivasan. And yet, I'll bet you money that Srinivasan gets pronounced correctly more often than Rantler. you money that Cernovacin gets pronounced correctly more often than Raitler. That could be. But I think as a tip, it is very nice to use the judge's name if you can. Just to get their attention, certainly. And, you know, you might get another judge's attention. So it's certainly helpful. Ann Arbor, it's just a great, great college town. I think the best college town in the country. The law school is wonderful. So we are podcasting from the added part of the law school that's about 10 years old. Chief Justice Roberts was here for the dedication for the building. It was probably to come to see the

building, but Michigan happened to be playing Notre Dame that weekend. And the chief is a Notre Dame fan. So it all worked out. But the other side of the street is the historic law Quad, which is 100 years old. It's just a beautiful, beautiful campus. And I hope you have some time to enjoy it while you're here. Well, you know, on our way, we already went to Culver's. David had never been to Culver's before. We got the cheese curds. I tried to get custard, but frankly, like somehow I was not doing the order correctly. And I ended up with a chocolate milkshake, which was, you know, fine, but not the custard that I really was looking forward to, frankly. The review is the mushroom Swiss burger was outstanding.

Cheese curds were no better than like Arby's mozzarella sticks. And the fries were replacement level, which is still good because it's a fry. They're still French fries. They're still French fries. Right, right. Yeah, I guess I feel like when I think cheese curds, I think squeaky. And these were fried, so they really then were kind of indistinguishable from, as you say, mozzarella sticks. I think they should have just gone with the squeaky curds.

I don't want this to be a culinary podcast. No, we're happy for it to be. But there are other great spots to stop in Ann Arbor. Blimpy Burger is a legendary place. Wait, it's called Wimpy Burger? Blimpy Burger. Cottage and Pizza is our local pizza spot. And if you get onto Main Street, there are a number of great restaurants there.

So you may be able to upgrade from Culver's, but. Just to be clear, by the way, Judge Radler was not always going to be part of this podcast because he comes to so many Michigan football games and happens to listen to this podcast. You knew we were coming and asked when we were flying in. And I was like, well, what if you just stay a day and you graciously offered to hang out? But my understanding is you were tailgating with a bunch of these guys this weekend. Yeah. Last weekend. So one of the traditions I've started for my clerks is to bring them up to a Michigan football game every year. We've done it two years in a row now. And the Federal Society

has been generous enough to host a tailgate. And it's been a great event. How crazy do those tailgates get? Pretty wild. So, you know, the admin law debates get pretty heated over a breakfast burrito. But we had three other federal judges here this year for the tailgate, and it's going to be an annual event. So for all of your listeners, if you want to join us in Ann Arbor, please let me know, and I'll let you know when we're coming for next year's game. So David, during my time, Ted Cruz was Solicitor General in Texas and he would come up every year for a tailgate slash poker game at the law school. Oh. Yeah.

Interesting. That was our yearly cool event. One quick thing. About as cool as a Michigan tailgate. I think we win. In our intro, did we ID Judge Riedler's Sixth Circuit? Maybe not.

Maybe not. So that's relevant information. It is because the Sixth Circuit has their tradition also that we've talked about of going to Gettysburg with Judge Sutton. That's right. Sorry, Judge Sutton told us

about the tradition of going to Gettysburg. That's right. And I should say, Sarah, as much as I like you, the reason I agreed to participate is because half of the podcast lives in the Sixth Circuit. It's true. It sort of felt like an obligation. That's exactly right. I have to do this.

We have a proud Tennessean here. That's exactly right. So one of the other great- Is this just constituency services? Absolutely. One of the other great traditions in my chambers, but I can't really take credit for it, is the annual trip to Gettysburg in May, which I understand you are contemplating attending this year? Not contemplating. Absolutely attending. Okay. We want the Legal Eagle badge. We want a live podcast from Gettysburg. We have plans.

Okay. Well, I'll see you there. That was started by Alan Norris, who's the judge I clerked for. And Judge Norris is in his 80s, and he is still taking us every year. He puts on an incredible program. He goes to Gettysburg himself probably four or five times a year. So nothing gets past him. It's a wonderful tour. Judge Sutton comes every year and usually some other judges as well. So you'll be quite welcome.

I hope you can make it. This is like when Gorsuch overlapped with Kennedy on the court. To actually have clerks on your court serving with you. That has to be odd for him. Is it interesting for you? I mean, obviously he's senior. Right. So I clerked for Judge Norris, and he's a senior judge. The only time we've sat together, unfortunately, was during the Zoom era. So we've been together on screen, not together in the courtroom. Did you dissent from any of his opinions? Like just wildly, passionately, absolutely wrong? They're all correct. Especially the ones from the 97-98 clerk year.

Yes, they're actually correct. And I'm actually in his seat, which is sort of a fun fact. So Judge Norris was replaced by Debbie Cook, who's a great member of our court on senior status. And I replaced Judge Cook. So it's actually Judge Norris' seat, which is a lot of fun. And if you trace it back, it actually goes back to Potter Stewart, I think is our last member of the Supreme Court that came from the circuit. We've given the Sixth Circuit a ton of love on this podcast.

Appropriately so. I guess. Appropriately so. It just feels weird, like of all the circuits. Y'all are kind of, hmm, I'm like staring at a Sixth Circuit judge about to say something like... Well, in years past, in years past, yeah, and I mean a decade or more... The Sixth and Eighth are kind of forgotten circuits.

Nobody quite, you know... But in years, a decade or so more, when I first started practicing, I shall say, the Sixth Circuit was, made national news for internal drama. I believe that has that era has long passed, but it did make national news for internal drama in the 1990s. So and the fifth is like, hold my beer. And yeah, the fifth is yeah. I'm not sure if all the internal drama was concentrated in 1970 1997-98 clerk class, but yeah, the Sixth Circuit has been much more peaceful in recent years. So, so far you've maligned my football team.

Yes. You've maligned my circuit. Yes. How much time do we have left? I'm going to get your name right every time, I promise. Let's deal with two quick housekeeping matters. Yes, that was all just intro. I know, I know.

So the first one is in the last podcast, and I know you all listened to this, my esteemed co-host was, I don't know if the right phrase is, insufferably condescending at my mispronunciation of a county in Texas. Now that county in Texas is spelled B-E-X-A-R. Okay. So I grew up in Kentucky where we pronounce words phonetically. So for example, there is a town in Kentucky called Versailles, right? There is a town in Kentucky called Athens. All right. So of course I'm going to read B-E-X-A-R and call it Bexar. And you said, no, it's Behar, like we're in Madrid or something. And what is it really, Sarah? As a hundred correspondents told us. Yes. My Texan card is now on probation.

But, okay. I have excuses. I have explanations. The short version is that it is Behar, but Texans have just put a little apostrophe verbally in there, so it's pronounced bear, because with a Texas accent, if you try to say Behar,

you're really just going to say bear. Do you hear the Behar and the bear? Mm-mm. Okay, well, it's there. Yeah, it's pronounced bear. Bear, bear. But, so that's one housekeeping. So mea culpa for both of us.

More me. But still, Bexar is really wrong. Okay, but then, but then. But then. Mr. Evangelical himself. Who's that? She's pointing at me, listeners. He writes something called his Sunday French Press, which is all about understanding Christianity and its modern incantations. And in our political world, sits there and lectures us on, how did you pronounce it? Christendom?

Christendom. No, Christendom. Well, there's a T. It is pronounced Christendom. Okay. All right. Every now and then I just- How many times do you think you've written that word, by the way? Like hundreds? Thousands. Well, you know, it's interesting. This is an interesting side issue because if you grew up in, say, a rural part of the country and you don't travel a lot and you don't meet people from a lot of different places, you learn pronunciation by reading. Uh-huh. How many planes have you been on in the last two weeks, David? Well, not now. I travel a lot now.

When did you mispronounce Christendom? Now, but I'm just saying this is an interesting phenomenon. Like, I spent a lot now. When did you mispronounce Christendom? Now, but I'm just saying this is an interesting phenomenon. Like I spent a lot of my life believing inevitable was pronounced inevitable and carried that into college. It was really tremendous when I was in Boston and I talked about somebody's chutzpah. And then on a job interview for Cleary Gottlieb in Manhattan, we were eating at the Four Seasons and there was a dish that had lamb, R-A-G-O-U-T, okay? Lamb, what I called, what I asked the waiter in front of these Cleary Gottlieb partners was what is lamb ragout? It's ragout. Right. So, yeah. Anyway, we're in major digression. OK. Last housekeeping bit. We asked last podcast for class action lawyers to weigh in on whether they thought the folks who had been on the Martha's Vineyard plane,

three of them, could serve as class action representatives for the 50 people who were on that flight. We talked about the merits, but we sort of left rule 23 to the experts, you and I, not doing class actions in our careers. And lo and behold, Jacob Phillips. As both a plaintiff's class action attorney and a card-carrying FedSoc member, I'd say there are dozens of us. Dozens. But even that is probably overstating it. I feel like my whole life has been leading up to being able to answer Sarah and David's call for class action attorneys to comment on the Martha's Vineyard case. Short answer. I think certification is extremely unlikely, except perhaps some of the constitutional claims,

although they would likely lose as a class on these claims anyway. As for the specific question of numerosity, the critical question in theory, as Sarah surmised, is the issue of joinder. The raw amount of class members is not really all that particularly relevant. For example, you could have, say, 25 class members, but if they are geographically dispersed, then joiner would be impracticable, and the numerosity requirement would likely be met. By contrast, you could have 100 members, but if they were all, say, homeowners in the same neighborhood, Joyner might not be impractical at all. As a practical matter, though, courts often do just look at the wrong numbers once it gets to a certain point, usually 40 or so.

I don't think numerosity is the problem here. 50 is a lot. And by the time the case progresses, they likely aren't going to all be in the same location or even the same state. The reason I don't think that this class is certifiable is because of adequacy, 23A4 and 23B3, predominance and superiority. As for adequacy, the question is whether there is a conflict of interest between the putative class representatives and at least some of the class members. The critical issue is whether there is a conflict of interest between the putative class representatives and at least some of the class members. The critical issue is whether what the class representatives are seeking would benefit some class members and harm others. The one that is a closer call than B3, but I think there are some adequacy problems here. One of the things that

plaintiffs are seeking is a declaration that what DeSantis did was unconstitutional for any number of reasons. But presumably some of the class want to have state governors pay for them to travel across state lines, even if the people they interact with say things that aren't true in the process. The bigger problem, though, is B3. One of the requirements of that subsection is that common issues have to predominate over individual questions. To be common to the class, an issue has to raise a question that is the same for all class members. Said another way, the evidentiary proof that will be used has to be the same for all class members.

Think of a breach of contract claim, et cetera. There are too many issues that can only be answered on a person-by-person basis. That precludes class certification. So take the fraud claim and goes on to discuss how you'd have to actually go person by person. When did you hear about it? Was it a verbal representation? It looks like the pamphlet was not necessarily distributed to all members of the class until potentially they were already on the flight, for instance. So there are fact issues that need to be resolved. But I really appreciated this. It's a very long comment that you can read on our website. And I appreciated it all the more because I like that there were four parts to 23A.

And so I had a multiple choice exam question. I picked one and that was wrong. And I could have picked three or four and been right. So yeah, and the long, I guess the short way of summing up that long comment, which was a spectacular comment is it's not the numbers of migrants that are the real issue. It's do they have common issues? Can one or can the three class representatives actually stand in for the 47 others adequately? And that's where this comment raises some doubts about that Yeah, and he thought extremely unlikely I might just move it into

Unlikely, I don't know that it's extremely unlikely even after reading his explanation. But yeah, so that's the housekeeping David Well, thank you judge for being patient during our housekeeping matters so we really we really appreciate you joining us. And when you've got a sitting federal judge, Court of Appeals judge with you, there's always a number of questions that I think are common questions that people ask. But let's start with some of the most common

that you might have in front of a law school audience. And that is you're hiring clerks every year. Every year. What are the elements beyond, okay, do real well in law school? What are the elements that help a clerk applicant stand out in your chambers? Yeah, clerking is really one of the highlights for, I think, any judge, the relationship you have with your clerks. The chambers are small. You spend a lot of time together. And I think from a judge's perspective, you're looking for people that you will enjoy having with you for a year, not only the shared interest in the law, but maybe shared interest in other things,

whether it's politics, sports, theater, culture, food, whatever it happens to be. And so sometimes you can make those things stand out on your resume. Sometimes in a cover letter, maybe you can find a way to get a hook with the judge. You know, if you went to Michigan and the judge went to Michigan, I would certainly highlight that on my letter. I think Chief Justice Rehnquist was famous for hiring tennis players. And then, as I understand, he would pick the best one as his partner for the year. And so I do play tennis. You don't have to feature that.

But if there's a way you can sort of, you're from the same hometown or that kind of thing, that's a great way to sort of stand out and connect with the judge. But from my perspective, I want to find people who I'm really going to enjoy spending time with. And they're not all going to be the same. Everyone sort of brings their own things to the table, but you're kind of putting together a team in a way in terms of clerks. So that's some of them. Should we think of them as, you know, dogs in a snow sledding situation? Like you sort of need

everyone pulling together. You're looking for three, really four dogs that can, you know, yoke. I mean, I'm not going to describe my clerks that way. dogs that can, you know, yoke? I mean, I'm not going to describe my clerks that way. Here's my question. I had Megan Brown, who's a partner at Wiley Ryan on the podcast recently and talking about OCI and Megan and I disagreed on the interest section on campus interviewing for law firms. And we disagreed on the interest section. I think it's important to get pretty detailed on your interest section, not because of some like grammatical rule or something, but for this reason that you want to sort of have that conversation starter and you're handing someone something that they can really ask you about. If you just put your interests are running, the person's like, so you like running. And that's

not a very good conversation starter. But if you say like, I ran a 5k, you're like, I saw flying out of Dulles that they do a 10k on the runway. So if you're like, I every year run the 10k on the runway at Dulles airport, they're gonna be like, okay, I'm curious. How are the planes landing? How do you not get hit? Is that part of the game? What do you think of interest section? How detailed should people get? Or was Megan right that you don't want to come off like a total weirdo, which is funny because Megan's friends with me, so jokes on her. I'd probably fall on your side of the line. I think you can emphasize things that are conversation starters.

That's a great way to get something going with the interviewer. And you're right, running the Quad City half marathon for eight years in a row is more interesting than just having been a runner. So I think there are probably extremes that you don't want to exceed, but I can think of one clerk applicant this year who I hired, who, I mean, he's a great student at Harvard, that didn't hurt, but also had really, really noteworthy things that he listed in his interest statement. And we talked about those probably as much as we talked about law or anything else. Can you give us one of his interests? Oh, my gosh.

There's something about, oh, this is on the spot. There's something about some part of the shoe that he was fascinated with. I forget. Like the things we wear on our feet? Yes. Like it's above the sort of heel. Okay, that definitely falls on my side of the line. One of your listeners will know what part of the shoe this is.

I forget, but I wasn't clear. And so we ended up talking about it for 10 minutes. I'm not sure why he was so interested in it, but we did talk about it for a while and it allowed him to show his personality. I mean, it's just a chance for the applicant interviewee to sort of show their personality more than discuss the nuts and bolts of the issue. Yes. I think you're so clearly right on that. Interesting. I used to be the chair of our hiring committee at my firm, and everyone was interested in these statements, these personal statements. One person got an interview simply because he was a Civil War reenactor.

They wanted to add, and he was in the movie Gettysburg, speaking full, bringing a full circle and died in Pickett's Charge. And then another person, she put down that she lived in a school bus for three years. People wanted to know about that. IDF paratrooper. People wanted to know about that. Yeah. I think when you can have something, now that's not to say that if you don't have something super, super interesting that you're toast.

But I do think it matters. But also don't be- You can make anything interesting. Everyone is interesting in some respect. Right. Well, don't be slightly misleading. So we had one guy who said, he began his personal statement saying, I am a gay mountaineer. And everyone's like, that's interesting. Very specific. But when you look closer, he wasn't actually a mountaineer. He had gone to the University of West Virginia, which was the Mountaineers. And so it was a little like bait and switch there. So yeah. But you're right. But you're right, Sarah.

All right. I have a question. You had two cases go up to the Supreme Court last term. You're one for one. You're batting 500. One and one. One and one. Sorry. One and one. You're batting 500. I mean, that would put you in many halls of fame if we were playing a different game. Well, one hall of fame, I mean, there are a couple of things about those cases. One is that one was from my very first sitting as a judge. So how many judges have had, how many appellate judges had a case from their first three-judge panel go to the Supreme Court? And that's the one where I dissented and I was affirmed. So I feel pretty good about that one.

The other Hall of Fame marker might be that last term, October term 2021, my two cases were argued one each on the first two days of the term. I'm quite certain that will never happen again during my career. But the case, one case was a sentencing case called Wooden about the- We talked about Wooden a lot. This is the storage unit case of whether robbing 10 storage units is one act or 10 acts. You said it was 10 acts and you were reversed. How many votes was that? Well, there's nine members of the court, and they all happen to disagree. I mean, I don't want to take full credit because slightly in my defense, we were applying sort of a settled rule in our circuit. So in some ways, it was a team loss.

But I was the one that you kindly, I think, did not mention my name. No, no, did not. If you did, you could have mispronounced it that time. It would have been just fine. But it was a good reminder. That was a sort of, in some ways, run-of-the-mill sentencing case. And our circuit had, there's pretty deep, mature split across the circuits. We were on one side, other circuits on the other, and it wasn't brief to us that a case you thought this was going to go to the Supreme Court. So it's

just a reminder that every case we see, you know, it's an important case and it could have legs to go somewhere else. And so we take them all quite seriously. The other case, Davenport was a habeas case out of Michigan. I wrote a dissent and 6-3, the dissent was vindicated at the court. And the three dissenting justices by my read actually never said that the circuit panel got it right. They certainly disagreed with the way the majority wrote the opinion. So arguably that was 9-0 also in a sense. So maybe I'm just one for one, one for two overall. It all evens out. I mean, fascinating when we think about the Supreme Court cases, once it's granted cert, it's, I'm going to get the number slightly wrong, but 65% chance of being overturned. In that case, the sixth circuit as a team got overturned both times. You were in the dissent on one, you're in the majority

on the other. And I wonder, as you're writing and as you sort of continue in your judicial career, is it tempting or not in these cases to say, we are bound by circuit precedent, so I'm coming out this way, but either concurring with yourself or even in the majority opinion, you know, tee it up for the Supreme Court and say, but I think there's issues here and this would warrant closer look and feel free to come in. That certainly happens. Yeah, that certainly happens from time to time. It's probably a judge specific decision whether you want to flag that or not. You know, our court doesn't take a lot of cases en banc. We take some, but not a lot. And oftentimes we take them to maybe clear up an interest circuit conflict. So if it's an issue where the Sixth Circuit's been on one side for a while, another circuit's been on a different side, I think it can be worth a judge if they want to flag the issue,

probably in a concurring opinion. That's a pretty appropriate place to do it. Or sometimes we have en banc practice and maybe there's a dissental written. But it's really a judge by judge practice. I think every court does that differently. But there are opportunities to sort of highlight if you have sort of an individual view about an issue, there are ways to do that. So you were noting that in the storage unit case, you were not necessarily expecting that one to go up. The other case that went up and where your opinion was vindicated, was that one, were you expecting that one to be reviewed? Or how many of your cases in a given year are you thinking, this has a chance for SCOTUS review? Maybe there are a couple each year in terms of a three-judge panel. If it's something that goes en banc, it's typically a more important issue.

So it could be something that might get the court's attention. I'm not sure when I was working on it that I thought the court would necessarily take the case. But the en banc stage, we didn't take the case en banc. We had a majority of our court say our rule might be wrong. And so in that way, sort of flagged it for the Supreme Court. So at that point, I thought maybe there was a chance. But there's obviously lots of things can happen. I mean, a party has to seek cert. The court has to grant cert. There could be some embedded issue

where they dig the case. I mean, there's lots. You never really quite know what cases are going to go. Or there's a split and they take one case over the other. I think we just try to do the best we can on every case. But these cases are both good reminders that sometimes, you know, there is another level appeal. There's another court looking at our work and to try to be as thoughtful as possible. You've got your own docket. You're busy. You hear oral argument. How much are you paying attention to what's going on at the Supreme Court? Like, do you listen to oral argument cases at the Supreme Court as well? Or you just wait for opinions to come out?

Do your clerks flag cert grants? Or you just sort of find out about them? Yeah, well, I'm always listening to the AL podcast first. Right, to that. Of course, of course. If I can get through the two. So you're missing all the arbitration cases. Please.

I do try to listen to some arguments. And I enjoy it. I mean, I was an appellate advocate when I was in practice. Only argued once at the court, but did enjoy listening to sort of hear the justices, how they tease out a case. In cases, you sort of made this point earlier, but cases get a new life at the appellate court. I mean, a case can look very different from the district court coming to our court.

And within certain bounds, you can kind of reshape a case and present it in a new way that can make the case be more attractive. And the same thing happens at the court. So it's kind of interesting to see how cases get presented to that court. And I read most every opinion that comes out. And it's a great, you know, that's something that I'll sit down with the clerks and we'll talk about that week's opinions, which ones were interesting. That's just one of the, I'll go back to the clerking point. But, you know, when you're at a law firm, you don't have a lot of time just to sit around and talk about cases unless it's a case that's relevant to what you're working on. But in chambers, that's pretty common. And it's just such a fun year to kind of dig into issues, hear what other people think, kick them around a

bit. So I try to stay on top of most of them, certainly when the Sixth Circuit's involved, but I think I read most all of them. So what's your mix between civil and criminal cases at the appellate level? I don't know the hard number. I think there are more criminal cases than civil, but most defendants probably appeal. There could be a waiver if they plead guilty, but a lot of cases come up, at least maybe even on a sentencing issue. So more, I'd say more criminal than civil, but I don't know the hard, hard numbers. So one of, one of my jobs on the podcast is I'm, I'm just sort of the stand in for common questions. Um, when we have a judicial, when we have a judicial guest and here's one former litigator, we used to argue about this all the time. How often in your experience

does oral advocacy make a meaningful difference? And remember all of your former partners back home who still have that job are listening. Well, it's certainly important. So I hope advocates come well prepared. And we really appreciate that. I think the one thing it often can do is decide not necessarily who wins, but how that party wins. Because sometimes there's two or three ways a party might win. And you might be thinking one thing, but argument sort of exposes a weakness in that position. Maybe your other colleagues think something different.

So that's common. The number of times where you sort of come in with one view and it totally flips is rare, but it does happen sometimes. You know, one of the things I probably didn't fully appreciate, you know, as an advocate to being a judge, and I sort of knew this, but wanted to think differently as an advocate, that's like your Superbowl when you're going in to argue a case. You set aside two or three weeks, you work on arguments, moot courts, all of it. And with the court, we take every case important, but we could have four or five arguments in one day. And so we don't have the time that the advocates do. And I said, as an advocate, I thought every case was like a jump

ball when I walked into court and I was going to push the needle one way or the other. But in reality, you know, the most important skill in law is writing. And we read the briefs and we have a sense of how a case is going to come out pretty much every time, individually, how a case is going to come out. So you can't emphasize enough how important the briefs are. And the argument then will sort of refine things, press issues that maybe weren't fully developed. And then occasionally it changes our view, but I think that's the exception. What work do your clerks actually do? What's the day in the life of a clerk look like? A lot of reading and writing. Those are the main skills. For cases that are argued, we typically do a bench memo. Explain what that is. Bench memo can be 10 pages, it can be 40 pages, hopefully not that long typically. But it's supposed to sort of give a

more neutral perspective of the case. Obviously, the parties present it from their position, the background of the case, and address the legal issues and sort of flesh out, here's the arguments, this side seems better, but the other side has this point in their favor and usually has a recommendation at the end. And sometimes those stay in chambers. Sometimes it gets circulated to other judges and then they help with opinions. And what controls whether the bench memo for you stays in chambers or it circulates? It's sort of a judge by judge practice. And I'm happy to, to share them. them. When I clerked, we shared bench memos, and I liked that as a clerk. It meant a little less work. And so we do it now, not for that

reason, but it is helpful. If I receive one, I usually have my clerk do their own based upon the memo they've received from the other chambers, not because I don't trust it, just because that's the person I've been working with and sort of know how they think through things. So I customarily exchange them. Most of our judges do. And then for opinions, I think it's true that most judges, the clerk will probably take a first crack at the case. You know, I have four or five times the number of cases they have. So we count on them to really sort of know the case. I mean, I always tell them, kind of tracing back to my law firm days, you're kind of the associate and I'm sort of the partner and the associates need to know like everything about the case, law, facts, posture, everything. So they do first draft, but that's when we really work sort of close to closest together because for any opinion,

we're going to go back five or 10, maybe 15 times in terms of rewrites that I do and giving things back and working out issues, moving things around. That's a pretty intense time. It's the thing I enjoy the most is kind of working through the opinion because that's our work product. I mean, what we do is we produce opinions. That's our widget. We can do a great argument. You can do other things, but the things we're measured by are the opinions. So we take them seriously. And one other thing I do is I have every clerk read every opinion before it goes out. We have the time to do that. And, you know, more eyes on something. Everyone will catch something. Sometimes it's a typo. Sometimes it's an area of 14th law jurisprudence that we missed or somewhere in between. But

that's also a practice in my chambers that I've found to be very helpful. So you're talking about how it's legal writing that is dispositive most of the time. I mean, if you're an oral advocate and one out of 100 arguments might sway the judge, you're still preparing as if 100 out of 100 would do it because there's the time. I mean, if you're an oral advocate and one out of a hundred arguments might sway the judge, you're still preparing as if a hundred out of a hundred would do it because there's the chance. But with the legal writing, that's the guts of it. That's the core of it. Talk a little bit about effective legal writing. What is it that, you know, what is it that stands out? How does a, how does an attorney stand out both positively and negatively in their legal writing? It's one thing that when I was teaching legal writing, I talked about plain English. I talked about directness.

I talked about avoiding excessive repetitiveness. Legalese is to be kind of shunned. Where to for you mean, David? Comes now, David French, to ask the judge. There's all kinds of little phrases in the law that you don't even know why they're there. Anyway, so talk about some of the things, what are the things, if you're talking to a group of law students, young lawyers, what's effective legal writing look like as you've been reading it as a judge? Yeah, there's lots of examples of bad writings. That's the easy thing to knock out. I don't think any judge has ever complained about a brief being too short.

So brevity, when you can do it, is preferable. We have word limits, but you don't have to reach those. Beyond that, I think a couple of things. I mean, one, presenting arguments in a straightforward, sort of coherent way. We expect you to be an advocate, so we expect you to shape things in one direction. But being very fair to the other side's case is important because we're going to read their brief. We're going to read their cases. If there's a really bad case for you or some bad fact, you should probably tell us. If you're the appellant, I would let the cat out of the bag. Because if we learn for the first time that there's a devastating case and you haven't presented it

for us in the best possible way, that's going to be really hurtful to your side. So I think being candid is important. Beyond that, the really good advocates are the ones who help us see down the road because we're deciding the case for that day, but we're also deciding it for the future. And the advocates can say either in their brief or an argument, you know, if my rule is the better one, but if you adopt their rule, here's all the terrible consequences that will come from it. If the other side does that too, then they help forecast for us, gee, you know, this, I was thinking about deciding the case this way, but if you change the facts a little bit, what are we going to do in that future case? So the really good advocates will also do that.

And that's really helpful. I never use footnotes would be my recommendation. That's controversial. That is controversial. Yes. Judges are using footnotes plenty. Some do. Judge Sutton doesn't.

And he was a real mentor for me. We practiced together early in my career. I think Justice Kennedy didn't use footnotes. I don't think Justice Breyer used footnotes. So there are examples on both sides, but you know, for me, one, the footnotes get distracting. And I apologize to everyone in the audience who's on law review, who's ready to throw things at me, because there the footnotes are actually more important than the text. But that's not true in legal writing, in brief writing or opinion writing. So one, the footnotes are distracting as you go up and down. Two, they almost always make like a sideways point. You know, you don't maybe put footnote, famous footnote four, I recognize,

but typically footnotes are not where like the gold is hidden. And why would you want to hide it from the reader anyway? So if it's a good argument, put it in the text. If it's a bad argument, just don't use it. Be disciplined. And the other thing footnotes sometimes are used for is to take like a pot shot at the other side. And I just wouldn't do that. I wouldn't do that as a general rule. So I just think a lot of reasons not to use footnotes. What about, we've seen parentheticals cleaned up, quote unquote, where you change the quote to make it easier. Now, sorry, not cleaned up. Cleaned up is just taking out the citations.

What's the one where they're actually changing the... Justice Kagan used it. Remember, David? I know, and I'm blanking. Well, why you Google that? I have... Cleaned up, I think, some judges like it, some judges don't. So there are two schools of thought on that.

I think it can make sense to just make things simpler. I'm not sure why you'd rewrite a quote. I mean, I will... Block quotes are terrible, so never use those. And Sarah, you found it. I did. Quotation modified. That's what sort of the new fun thing is. But also, there's more putting the graphic of a tweet, for instance, in a brief or maps or visuals.

Are you finding that helpful or less helpful? Those can be very helpful if it's, you know, sort of it displays the point you want to make or there's some critical piece of evidence that you that sort of demonstrative. Like if they showed the storage unit doors really close to each other, would that have helped you see it as a single event? Oh, this is my first and last podcast. Wow. Wow. That was so much worse than saying something about Michigan football. Thank you for having me. Yes. I will say our rule, if you want to go back to that case, our rule was sequential and it was easy to apply. I think the Supreme Court thought it led to harsh results and that was probably a fair observation also, but it was at least easy to apply because when an occasion

ends and a new one starts, it's sort of a hard thing. And you said, for instance, he could have stopped after any of the storage units and not gone to the next one. And that was a very persuasive part of your argument. Not persuasive enough, apparently. Well, it's not for 100% of the justices on the Supreme Court, but one could imagine if there had been a 10th justice or an 11th one, maybe then. Yeah, it's all part of the learning process. So it was a good experience. So two things.

One, circling back to the writing, which I think is really important for law student listeners, young lawyer listeners, and then people are just trying to persuade in general is what struck me is how different what you described is from the kind of rhetoric we hear in political argumentation. You're going to ignore opposing arguments. Often you see op-eds, essays, ignore opposing arguments, mischaracterize opposing arguments. That kind of thing, which is a bad habit, especially of hyperpolarized times, walk into a courtroom with that habit and it's not going to serve you well at all. And I think one of the things, one of the reasons why we have seen our court system of our institutions really come through hyperpolarization better than

many of the other institutions is because of these customs and because of these disciplines. And we'll take a quick break to hear from our sponsor today, Aura. Ready to win Mother's Day and cement your reputation as the best gift giver in the family? Give the moms in your life an Aura digital picture frame preloaded with decades of family photos. She'll love looking back on your childhood memories and seeing what you're up to today. Even better, with unlimited storage and an easy to use app, you can keep updating mom's frame with new photos. So it's the gift that keeps on giving.

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So, Judge, lest people listening think that I am overly familiar with a random appellate judge who showed up for our podcast today. This just gets more flattering all the time. First, I was known for being reversed, now I'm just completely random. But that's okay. Random appellate judge. No other judge is going to come on our podcast. We actually worked together at the Department of Justice. Yes, we did. You were in the Civil Division and you became the confirmed head of, no, you weren't? I was the acting head. You were the acting. Yes, yeah.

Yeah, but of the whole Civil Division, which is just a huge chunk of the Department of Justice. How many lawyers do you think you had in the Civil Division? A thousand. A thousand, yeah. Yeah, in D.C. Oh, just in D.C. That's huge.

So you had come from private practice at Jones Day and show up to the Department of Justice during a pretty calm time there. Really? I'm just curious what it was like on the litigation side of things. Yeah, I've told the story to many people about my first day on the job, but because of client commitments, I couldn't start until sort of the second full week of the administration. So I spent a weekend like packing up all my stuff. And on Sunday morning, I coached my daughter's sixth grade basketball game in Columbus and then got in a rental car to drive off to D.C. to stay at a place I found on Craigslist. So it's a pretty, pretty inauspicious start. And the first morning I wake up to go to DOJ, I have this horrible mouth pain and have to get a root canal.

My first day on the job. So then I actually go back to work that day and meet my staff. And I'm still sort of under the effects of the surgery. So that was tough. And my colleague walks in and says there's an emergency meeting with the attorney general. And so I go up to the attorney general's office. And the executive order, sort of commonly known as the travel ban, had come out the prior Friday. And so that was the point of discussion.

And Sally Yates was the acting AG then and we discussed it. And then an hour later, I think she said she wasn't going to defend it. And then a little bit later that day, she was terminated. So that was my first day on the job. That's something out of the West Wing with the root canal to boot. It was quite a start. It was a good probably harbinger of things to come because that I mean, the civil division takes on most of the high profile kind of policy oriented cases. It's mostly defensive work. And the real notable things are challenges to executive orders,

agency rules and regulations or other decisions by the executive branch. And today, I don't think this is a good trend, but everything gets litigated. It's great if you have a podcast, I should say. It gives you plenty of material. Lots of content. But every policy decision, state or federal, of any significance gets litigated. So for the civil division and the federal programs branch in particular, that meant running into court on relatively short notice, defending very, very difficult cases, either legally difficult, substantively difficult, or both. And it was a real honor to lead for a year and a half and worked with really talented lawyers. And the one thing I'll say is it's a real privilege to

represent the United States or a state or another governmental entity. You know, I remember the first time I went to court and said, you know, I'm here on behalf of the United States. Like what a thrill that was. On that day, it was probably the high point of the argument. So we were always defending an executive order about sanctuary cities and I was in federal court in San Francisco where we litigated frequently. And so that was kind of an excellent judge, tough argument. But I just really appreciated the lawyers who had sort of committed their careers to doing government work. And there were so many good ones. And so it's just a pleasure to work on these interesting cases with great lawyers. And it might be that I

love my current job, but that might be the best job I ever had in a way So did you argue I? Did yeah, yeah, yeah, so I would I guess you if you've got heads of civil division you've got some of the most experienced attorneys in the country and How often does it happen that a head of the civil division will argue it? Well, there's a, there's six branches. Five of them are led by deputies who are political appointees. Then there's the head of the division, maybe a principal deputy. Most of those people do argue, at least some cases. I mean, some cases are quite politically sensitive where it might make sense to have someone who's there as a political appointee. You know, some of the cases, I mean, again, I really admire the lawyers I worked with,

but after the first arguments in the first travel ban, I remember one of our lawyers got death threats. Yeah. And so sometimes maybe there are times when a political appointee should sort of step up and do something. So it's kind of mixed because a lot of that, I mean, also the talented lawyers, career lawyers, they like to argue. So sometimes it's sort of, you know, maybe you do this one, I'll do that one. So it works out. But I think it's natural for the appointees to want to argue some cases for various reasons. And I really enjoyed that part about the job. I probably lost more than I won, but it was really a thrill to be in court.

Don't forget the Deputy Attorney General argued at the Supreme Court. I had forgotten. Yeah, Rod showed up in the tails and everything, the morning coat. I had forgotten that. Yeah. Well, you know, I guess, I mean, to use the apt Top Gun analogy, you want to stay Maverick as long as you can. And as much as it is, you know, an honor to be Iceman

and the commander of the Pacific Fleet. Oh, God, you're talking new Top Gun. I thought you were going to go with Tom Selleck reference. No, no, no, no. Tom Selleck? Wait, isn't that who's in the original Top Gun who is like the commander dude? Who's that?

Oh, my head is hurting. Wait, who is that? No. Tom Skerritt. Skerritt. Skerritt, yes, okay. That wasn't that far off. Movies that are from 1980 whatever.

That's so far off. You're talking Magnum PI versus Tom Selleck. But anyway, you you miss arguing cases? I bet a lot of judges would say in some ways they do. I mean, most were advocates before they went on the bench. And there is something thrilling about preparing a case and going to present it. My stress level is much lower than it was, and that's a good thing. But sure, at all argument, you know, there aren't really any many bad questions, but there can be bad answers. So there's some pressure on the advocates to sort of have a

good answer that's persuasive or doesn't concede something. But there are a lot of highs and lows with that, and sometimes I miss that. But I think also judges take pride in their opinions, and you don't care necessarily who wins or loses, but you do want it to be written in a way that makes sense. It writes a rule that will hold up. So two years later, a panel gets a case and has your opinion to work through and doesn't work very well anymore. And so a lot of thrills to this job, too. But yeah, advocacy is a really special thing. And I bet a lot of judges probably miss it to some degree. If you had asked me for a variety of predictions in 2017 when we were at DOJ, the one that I would have gotten most incorrect is that I would have bet large sums of money that by 2022,

the Supreme Court would have resolved the issue over nationwide injunctions. You probably were enjoined nationwide more than any other civil assistant attorney general up to that point. Yeah, not personally. I think you should have felt it personally. Yes, on behalf of my client, the United States, we probably had more nationwide injunctions in my two years than any point in history. And I'm not going to talk sort of deep legal and policy issues on a podcast for various reasons, but I do think it's something that the Supreme Court just needs to address in a case because, you know, we saw a lot of nationwide injunctions in the last administration. We're seeing them now.

Obviously, there's some form shopping that can happen in terms of where you file cases. I just think we need, rather than sort of tit for tat, I just think we need to know the rules. You know, maybe we do know the rules, which is you're supposed to give relief to the parties in front of you, essentially. And, but there can be a debate about what that means. You know, one thing that kind of goes hand in hand, I think, with the rise of nationwide injunctions is the rise of states being litigants in these cases. So you have a case, you know, if Texas brings the DAPA case, maybe they have an argument that because they give out driver's licenses, that this has a nationwide effect. And so they should get a nationwide injunction versus, you know, five

plaintiffs bringing that case, individual plaintiffs bringing that case, or you have multiple states bringing a case together. So I think that's probably complicated analysis a little bit because you have large entities litigating, but just for all the lower court judges, I mean, we are inferior courts and we look to the Supreme Court. And at some point, I think they will give us more guidance on that. That'll be helpful just across the board. Footnote, David, the thing that Judge Radler hates the most. On Thursday's episode, we are going to talk about a case on the student loan order. So that'll be another case that will fall to the civil division at the Department of Justice to defend when anyone sues over the student loan.

A plaintiff thinks they have standing. Yeah, we'll just leave it at that. We'll leave it at that. That's the kind of advisory opinions teaser that really keeps the audience coming back. A plaintiff thinks they have standing. I think they do too. Yeah, it's possible. But I mean, the civil division there, as you say, like the criminal division is huge at the

Department of Justice also, but rarely the one making the headlines. That's probably right. So one difference is that on civil cases, main justice really has a right of first refusal over any civil case filed in the United States. There are a lot of lawyers in U.S. attorney's offices who do civil work, but for various reasons, partly because some of the cases are sensitive. Maybe the lawyers in D.C. have worked with an agency very closely or worked with the White House. They keep a lot of cases there, and a lot of them do gather attention. They're hard cases. Even the death penalty protocol case was the civil division. Yes, yes. It was actually on the drugs available. Managed to touch quite a few things.

But the student loan case, I'm obviously not going to talk about the merits of that. But that seems a little atypical in that there's more wind-up period to file the case. And usually what happens is an agency issues a rule. They've been working on it for two years. Notice and comment and all that. And once the rule is issued, either a consumer group or business group challenges the rule. And a district judge says, OK, I'm going to have a PI hearing in three weeks. And that means the civil division, probably federal programs lawyer, has three weeks

to learn the substance of the rule. I mean, what did commerce do and what are they regulating? The law in that area, write a brief and then go argue that in court, sometimes in an extended PI hearing. It's really hard work. I really admire all the lawyers in the Civil Division, especially the ones who are sort of pressed into action so quickly on hard cases. So Civil Division, you mentioned it has a reactive role. Maybe that's the predominant aspect is when the US is sued. But Civil Division also sues. Now, it can't take on

every civil rights case that bubbles up. It has limited resources, even with a thousand attorneys. Talk about sort of the policy making aspect and policy prioritization aspect of your job. How much of that was the president, the attorney general, you? How did this sort of the policy priorities get set in your more proactive litigation? Well, for anything we did, it was much more the first two rather than the third. But so I should say at the beginning that there's a civil rights division, which does a lot of sort of hot button election issues and other things. So that didn't touch the civil division as much. But most of the time, I mean, sometimes the division might be consulted if an agency is getting ready to do something or the president's getting ready to issue an executive order or sort of, you know, here's what we're thinking about

doing. Is there something that we should do slightly different to help with our litigation exposure? But by and large, it's quite reactive. A rule happens and executive order is issued, a tweet comes out hypothetically, and then we're sort of pressed into defending. But obviously the AG runs the department. And I know you guys usually ask the questions. I might pose this one to Sarah too, but I think attorney general is the hardest job in Washington. Sarah would know because she worked with the AG every day on everything that was happening. But there are so many things that hit the department on a daily basis. Civil litigation, criminal litigation, agencies have things going on. The White House says a civil matter wants to talk about something on the Hill that they want the AG to weigh in on DOJ. It's

such a hard job. And the AG, you probably, I think it's the hardest job in Washington, given the volume of things that come through the department. I can imagine a world in which DOD, the Secretary of Defense, is harder, but it would be circumstantial, like circumstance dependent, whereas DOJ, the circumstances are almost always the same. Meaning, as you said, like there's a thousand moles popping up and you just have to decide which ones to whack that day. And you can't whack them all. Well, and I mean, you can, you guys can tell me differently, obviously, because you have the experience. It seems that DOJ is put, even though the DOJ is not a distinctly different kind of agencies than, than say DOD or Health and Human Services, it's viewed kind of as almost quasi

independent in some ways. And so that aspect of it seems to be a massive complicator. How much is, you know, for example, in the Mar-a-Lago search, the attorney general did not inform, I mean, if the news reports are to be believed, did not inform the president until the search was underway or shortly thereafter that there was a search of a former president. When does the commerce secretary ever not get to inform the president about something that's going to lead the news for weeks? When is the secretary of defense ordering a military strike and then telling the president while the bombs are dropping?

Like, that's not a thing, you know? So DOJ, that strikes me as a massive challenge, considering that the DOJ isn't constitutionally different from these other. Yeah, it's a sort of related point that the DOJ determines the legal position of the United States. So in a civil matter, our DOJ is representing HHS or DHS. It's not usually the lawyers who decide things. It's the client who says, I want to do this and I don't want to do that. But that's flipped in government. DOJ says, we'll argue this point, but we're not going to argue these other two points for prudential reasons or historical reasons or because they're just wrong. So that DOJ has then that

responsibility to figure out what arguments they're going to make, what arguments they're not. And there's certainly a reporting chain. So any AAG over a component is going to have some direction in terms of how things go. But in sensitive cases, and there are quite a few, you're obviously reporting up to the associate's office, the DAG, and the AG. Which, by the way, is why I do disagree with you that the AG's job is the hardest, because I think I might pick pay DAG, which we've talked about a little on this podcast, but the principal associate deputy attorney general, which is the deputy, the DAG's number two, because that's everything flows through that office. You know,

after civil division, and I do want to talk a little bit about how the solicitor general interacts with the civil division, because that's sort of fascinating as well at DOJ. But yeah, if you look at the org chart, like the civil division, civil rights, what else? The environmental division all run through the associate's office, which was created in the 1970s. And then that runs to the DAG. Whereas like my component reported directly to the DAG, it's all very weird. But all lines run to the DAG's office, which means, you know, the DAG's out traveling too

and giving speeches. And especially if he's the acting attorney general, again, hypothetically. And so it's really his number two that is the COO of the department. That job looks fun. Yeah, I mean, eventually they'll report to the AG. So maybe you bundle this up and sort of

just DOJ is the hardest agency. Maybe that's a better way to put it. And obviously we're probably a little biased since we both worked there, but a lot happens. Okay. So how does a solicitor general's office interact with the civil division since so many times with the civil division is litigating at that district court appellate level is going to end up in the solicitor general's office potentially, like the travel ban. Yeah. Well, there are a lot of cases we lost at the SG1. So I really appreciated that at the end of the day, we took our lumps along the way. But you're right for any big case that's going to go up probably to the appeals court, maybe the Supreme Court,

certainly the AG is aware, but the SG gets involved too. Everyone knows the SG for arguing cases in the Supreme Court and what a privilege that is and what a great office that is with incredible lawyers. But the other thing that that office does, the SG him or herself does, is they have to approve any appeal from a district court across all DOJ offices, U.S. Attorney's offices, main justice. So essentially in the district court, whatever's happening, whoever runs the component, the AEG can sort of dictate what will happen from the DOJ side. But if they lose and they want to appeal, they have to get the SG's permission. The SG actually physically signs a slip of paper authorizing an appeal. And it could be a full appeal. It could be appeal, but only these two issues. It could be there's five cases we're going to appeal in this circuit, but not in the other

circuits. So it's a really important responsibility for the SG because they shape how cases kind of work their way through the federal court system. So we relied on that office a lot to help us steer things in the right way and kind of look down the road a bit. Judge, it would be remiss of me to have a judge here and to not ask you to adjudicate. So there is a long running dispute on this podcast about whether or not people should go to law school. And my position is that- You planned a hometown advantage here. You could have done this at any point if we weren't at a place where all of the people

had made your decision. Well, but I mean, we have an adjudicator. And so my position is that if you're not certain about what you want to do in life, you're coming out of undergrad, and it's not going to be too much of a financial burden, that law school is an extremely, is a good option expanding choice, even if you don't know that you want to be a lawyer. I loved law school. I thought law school taught me to think better, gave me a great deal more options in my life and my career. And Sarah thinks that this experience should be denied to everyone except those who are definitely sure at age 22 or 23 that they want to be lawyers. So how would you adjudicate that? Do you feel like you just followed his rules on fairly representing the other side? Is that not your position?

Do you think you did a good job with that? Do you think you were candid with the court? We can allow for a buttle if we need two minutes. My position is that, in fact, it's like the opposite of David on every front, that if you get in to a top tier, and we can sort of haggle over what that means, I don't mean the top 10, but a top tier law school, actually then the financial burden is not something you should be particularly concerned about if you want to be a lawyer. But we

have so many people going to law school because they're used to being in school. They don't know what to do next. Law school seems more open-ended than business school or medical school, which is odd, by the way, because you go to medical school because you want to be a doctor or in that vicinity. Same thing with law school. And so the reality is we have a lot of people go to law school, take on enormous amounts of debt. They don't want to be a lawyer. They never wanted to be a lawyer. They don't even know what that really means to be a lawyer, but they end up being a lawyer because that's what you do after law school. And then we have high levels of alcohol abuse, drug abuse, mental health issues in the legal profession, in part because those people never wanted to go practice law in

the first place. Isn't that exactly what I said your position was? Well, I think two things. One, you know, as an appellate judge, you never get to decide anything on your own. You have to at least one person agree with you. So in that sense, I'm not going to break your tie. I think formally because I'm on my own and that's foreign territory. Another caveat is I have a high schooler who's getting ready to go off to college and is thinking about a career in law. And so I don't want, she probably won't listen to this, but on the off chance she does, I don't want to dissuade her from doing it or encourage. But she would probably follow my rule then. She's really thought about it. She wants to be a lawyer. She understands what the practice of

law is because conveniently she has seen someone in the practice of law. There's plenty of ways to learn about the practice of law that don't involve having a family member in the practice of law, for instance. True. I mean, we have to get to college first and figure that part out. Graduate high school might be your first step. Yes. But, you know, when I speak to law students, I always remind them, you know, sort of how many doors a law degree can open. It doesn't really close any. It just opens them. And in that sense, I think there's a lot of value to having the degree. I certainly appreciate sort of what should I do with it? But the other side of that is there are so many things you can do. And sometimes I joke, but some of the happiest lawyers I know are the ones who don't practice law.

But that's a reflection on the fact that you can go into business, you can teach, you can start a nonprofit, do a podcast. I mean, there's so many different things you could do. David, this sounds like a good one for you. Wise words, Judge. Wise words. Dissent, it does close a door because you're taking on such an enormous amount of debt no matter where you go. It closes the door to take a job that doesn't allow you to pay off that debt. Depends on the school. Depends on the school. If you go to a school that's going to be super cheap, then you probably shouldn't have gone to that law school.

So, Judge, you've been incredibly generous with your time. We don't want to take advantage too much more of your time. But you did suggest an advisory opinions drinking game. And I don't know when you should probably put this in context also. I don't know when you should probably put this in context also. So, uh, well, I was just, uh, so first off my, I, if I didn't say this, you know, my, my former clerks, my current clerks, my future clerks, they all listen to the podcast. I want to say hello to them, but they were all, we're all big fans. Um, but I just started joking with you earlier that, you know, if there ever was an AL pod podcast drinking game, uh, that it would be to take a drink every time you hear Sarah say,

but David. I'm afraid that could lead to alcohol poisoning. But I only say that because Sarah and I work together and she was a great, great colleague. And I really enjoy the podcast. So thanks. Thanks for having me. Well, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks, Judge. And go blue. All right. Welcome to Advisory Opinions. Welcome to the Dispatch. Welcome to Ann Arbor.