Advisory Opinions - Screaming Complaints

Episode Date: April 13, 2023

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s latest PR stunt is a fight against Jim Jordan and Republican grandstanding. Sarah and David tear through the 50-page lawsuit before getting to a special guest interview with Andrew Brasher, former Solicitor General of Alabama. Show Notes: -Bragg goes after Jordan: merit + lots of nonsense -The cruel unfairness of debating someone who's good at debating, see: Isgur v Goldberg on Nazis marching in Skokie -A sidebar on actually listening to opinions different than yours -Judge Brasher on SGs and career paths. -The clerk application process isn't great -Wordle and CIA-level crossword secrets Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You ready? I was born ready. Welcome to Advisory Opinions. I'm Sarah Isger. That's special guest David French. And ooh, have we got a treat for you today? Yes, we're going to briefly talk about the Alvin Bragg lawsuit against Jim Jordan and the subpoena that congressional Republicans sent to him. But we're going to save that January

6 DC Circuit opinion. It was too good. It was too juicy. There's too much to dive into. That's going to come next episode. And instead, we're going to talk to Judge Andrew Brasher of the 11th Circuit. He was the state solicitor general for the state of Alabama before ascending into judicial robes. He went to Harvard Law School, clerked for now Chief Judge William Pryor, who was also on the 11th Circuit. And we're going to talk about everything, state SG life, clerk life, oral arguments, and Wordle, that Wordle clue from last week. What does he really think? But David, let's start with this lawsuit by Alvin Bragg,

interestingly brought with and by the lawyers at Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher, along with his own office, who are serving as counsel to him. It's a 50-page lawsuit. Most other lawsuits of this varietal would be under 10 pages. I'm curious for your thoughts, but quickly to remind everyone, would be under 10 pages. Yeah. I'm curious for your thoughts, but quickly to remind everyone, a group of congressional Republicans led by Jim Jordan

sent a subpoena to Alvin Bragg asking for specific things related to his investigation of Donald Trump and the indictment of Donald Trump. I am not surprised that Alvin Bragg has moved to quash this lawsuit and move that into federal court to do so. And in fact, the two causes of action in his lawsuit are, benign isn't necessarily the right word, but totally unsurprising.

That one, they don't have a legislative purpose under Mazar's, the Mazar's balancing test. If you remember for the congressional subpoena about Trump's taxes, that this fails the Mazar's test, number one. And that two, even if it doesn't fail the Mazar's balancing test on congressional subpoena, that nevertheless, they're asking for grand jury materials and other things that they don't have a right to have access to. But then there's 46 other pages, David. Yeah, well, this is, do you remember how we talked about the speaking indictment or the talking indictment?

Yes. And wondered whether Bragg was going to bring a speaking indictment when he charged Trump. And he kind of sort of did. The indictment itself was not, but he had a statement of facts that was and laid out his complaint against Trump in greater detail, although we both found it rather insufficient.

This isn't a speaking complaint. This is a screaming complaint. So in other words, this is basically saying, I'm going to describe to you all of the ways in which I believe the Republican majority is being bad. And I'm going to show you tweets. I'm going to show you rhetoric. And essentially all of it is designed to sort of say, wait a minute, this isn't a legislative, this isn't a legislative purpose. This is posturing.

This is an act of attempted intimidation. This is part of sort of the Trump movement's effort to intimidate the DA. And so it's an enormous amount of flavoring. And when I saw the lawsuit, I saw that it was 50 pages. And the first thing I did, Sarah, and this is what I often do when I read a lawsuit, is I go down to the causes of action first to see what is all of this winding up to. And it was really, really simple. It was just super simple. It was, wait a minute,

you don't have legislative oversight over the Manhattan district attorney. That's, that's the prime cause of action. You just don't have legislative oversight over the district attorney in Manhattan. Where's your legislative purpose? What's your legislation that you could pass here? where's your legislative purpose? What's your legislation that you could pass here? This is all about just sort of grandstanding with the previous 40 plus pages. And then the other part is you can't violate grand jury secrecy.

It's just that simple. You don't have authority and you can't violate grand jury secrecy. The problem is this was grandstanding about grandstanding in my view. So let me read you. This is when you get finally to the factual allegations on page 10.

Factual allegations. A, District Attorney Bragg takes office and reduces crime in New York City. As of April 2nd, 2023, the year-to-date statistics for New York and Manhattan specifically continue to trend downward. Homicides are down 14.3%

and down further in Manhattan. Shooting incidents are down 17.3%. Rapes are down 14.3% and down further in Manhattan. Shooting incidents are down 17.3%. Rapes are down 33.3% and down further in Manhattan. Robbery is down 7.6% and down further in Manhattan. Burglary is down 21% and down further in Manhattan. Total index crimes are down 1.3% despite being up slightly citywide. What does that have to do with anything? Another line says, Alvin Bragg, this is not in describing the parties. This is still under the factual allegations.

Plaintiff Alvin Bragg Jr. is the first black person to serve as district attorney of Manhattan, period. Okay. Okay. Okay. What? period okay okay what um as i said any other lawsuit of this type would have been 10 pages most of those would have been the parties the jurisdictional statement and you would have had the two counts this is just a quash and indictment. That's it. Right. But I'll just tell you, David, look, I think that the subpoena

from congressional Republicans doesn't pass the Mazar's test. I don't think it has a legislative purpose. I thought it was BS. It wasn't going to, like, they weren't, Bragg isn't showing up and they're not turning anything over.

isn't going to, like, they weren't, Bragg isn't showing up and they're not turning anything over. But this lawsuit just once again doesn't give me much faith that the Trump indictment is in good faith, if that makes sense. There's so much grandstanding here. The headlines and the quotes and all of that

seemed far more geared towards headline generation than towards simply quashing the subpoena. I mean, the fact that most of the headlines said Alvin Bragg files lawsuit against Jim Jordan instead of Alvin Bragg moves to quash lawsuit, sorry, quash subpoena against Jim Jordan kind of tells you, kind of told me, I don't know. Maybe I'm, am I not, am I not approaching this

with a clear heart, David? I, okay, here's where I am on it, Sarah. Nothing that has happened since the indictment has filed, was filed, has made me feel better about the Manhattan case. Nothing at all. And this, I include this in the category of nothing at all, even though I do agree with the underlying merits of the case that there is not a legislative purpose for hauling former members of his office in front of a congressional committee. So I agree with you. I think that this was absolutely a public relations document that was,

but in his defense, that does contain a meritorious legal claim, I think. Right. Does contain a meritorious legal claim, but it is absolutely a press release as well. There's no question about that. And his defenders would say, stop being naive. This is what has to be done to combat propaganda,

et cetera, et cetera. Well, you can put out a press release. You know, you can put out a press release that has all the declining crime stats and all of that stuff. But yeah, I mean, maybe this just goes back to our hidebound traditionalism, Sarah,

that we like judicial opinions that contain legal arguments and not political rhetoric. And we like complaints that are stick to just the facts, ma'am. I suppose you're right. But I think the underlying claim is meritorious. I know it's meritorious.

And yet, the rest of the lawsuit is nonsense. It's a meritorious lawsuit with a lot of nonsense. But he's going to win. I don't doubt that. Speaking of whether anything's changed our minds, I just engaged in a fascinating debate with Norm Eisen. That name may ring. Yeah.

I mean, it may ring a bell to a lot of people, but he was judiciary committee during the first impeachment and trial of Donald Trump in 2020. He's now at Brookings and he's a CNN legal analyst and stuff. And anyway, the debate was, be it resolved, the Trump indictment is bad for democracy. And he obviously took the anti position. And you know what, David,

as opposed to Twitter or cable news, where again, I felt like I was hearing so much of, yeah, but he's bad, who cares? Why are we like so focused on the law part of this? It was very illuminating to hear someone only argue the legal part and why the case is stronger than I thought. And I just want to give credit to the folks, Norm and the folks like Norm out there who are making that case, because that's an argument that I'm happy to have and is worth having. And I wouldn't say he changed my mind. Like I'm not flipping sides on this, but, um, you know, his arguments on the differences between on the federal campaign

finance side, on the differences between John Edwards and Donald Trump in terms of the evidence we know was more persuasive than I had heard it before. And, um, you know, his argument may win the day. It might. I mean, there's a reason why I described it in my piece about it before. And, you know, his argument may win the day. It might. I mean, there's a reason why I described it in my piece about it before the indictment, which I reaffirm after the indictment. I said it's not frivolous. It's not frivolous, but it's unwise. The legal argument in support of the indictment

is not a frivolous legal argument. Right, it's not sanctionable, et cetera. I think it's a bank shot. Right, right, right. I think it's a bank shot. Right, right, right. I think it's a bank shot. I think it's difficult to make, which makes it unwise. But it's not frivolous.

It's never been frivolous. And so, yeah, in what format was your debate? Where were you debating? It's called the monk debates. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So it's going to be the Monk Debate for this month or week or whatever. Oh, fantastic. Like, did you go to a comedy club in New York and do it? We did not. We just did it over Zoom because we wanted to do it as quickly as possible after all of this happened. I will tell you, I very much felt like,

set aside the actual merits, I very much felt like, set aside the actual merits, I very much felt like I lost the debate. He is an incredible debater and a very good lawyer. So that was annoying. Yeah, that is always when you feel like you've got a much stronger argument and then you're walking into the argument and you realize, oh man, the person I'm debating is really good at the art of debating. Yes. Yeah. You know, I debated free speech extremism, which I am a free speech extremist. You're a free speech extremist. Right.

We're basically jihadis for the First Amendment. And I debated that with Jonah, who, as you may know, thinks that Skokie was wrong, that the Nazis should not be able to get a parade permit to march through Skokie, and there should be some amount of local control in terms of what speech...

He's a community standards guy. Yep, he's a community standards guy. So we just did that debate on the remnant episode the latest remnant episode that's out and sort of the same thing except there i'm even more sure i'm right and i still felt like people were going to listen and be like oh jonah has a good point i'm like no we just what no it's deeply painful debating smart thoughtful people that's what i've decided well and it's also what I have found, and I can't wait to listen to this episode of The Remnant.

What I've found is that there is a difficulty when you're making first, when you're debating free speech, because when you're taking the position that we take- You're always defending the worst things. Yes, yes. So the way it always goes is like this. And I had this experience in front of, you know, to circle back to our conversation before. The first debate I Douglass. And then he comes in and he's like,

yeah, I'm totally with David on free speech. But my plan is you get all the good speech and that stuff that you really hate. We can knock out most of that. That's what Jonah was basically. I mean, it's funny because we talked about this as well, that the left wing and the right wing can end up in similar places on free speech

from very different first principles. But yes, you know, I'm having to sit here defending why it's actually not just okay, but like good that the Nazis get to have their parade. And, and Jonah's like, yeah, but what if you just got all of the speech that actually helps further our political debates, but no Nazis. And I'm like, well, except you can't do that. That's my point. It doesn't work. But, but yeah, so I didn't even pointed that out to him. And I was like, you get to be the guy being against the Nazis. And I have to be, whenever you're the free speech side, you're somehow the pro-Nazi side every time. And here I am, I am the pro-Nazi side. Well, you know, but the interesting thing about it is there's always only a very small number of us, Sarah, the people who are the actual sort of free speech zealots,

fanatics, whatever you want to call it. But depending on the fight, we always have a lot of allies because you always have a free speech for me, not for the tribe that you're joining with on the case. And so you might have a case where you're defending religious speech and all of the religious folks are like, yeah, you go. And they're your ally for one case. And then the next case comes up and they don't like you anymore. But the people you were opposed to in the previous case are like, yeah, now it's

our team. Yeah. I got to say though, when, when you're taking my position, which is that, uh, the, the Nazi Skokie parade is one of the proudest moments in American history. The bedfellows that you're sleeping with are not, they're not cuddly. There are exceptions to the rule that I just said. There are exceptions. Yeah. Yeah. There are. There are people who truly are pretty darn friendless when it comes to free speech. And those are the ones that guarantee the rights for the rest of us. Yeah, I mean, as I've said a million times,

you need to be nice to the people, the Jehovah's Witnesses, when they knock on your door, because if you knew how much of your free speech and religious liberty you owed to ordinary Jehovah's Witnesses, you'd be nice to those folks. All right, two quick notes.

I mentioned that January 6th DC Circuit opinion that we're going to talk about at the next episode. Really fascinating three-judge panel with Katsis, Walker, and Pan. Pan writing the majority, Walker writing the concurrence, and Katsis writing the dissenting opinion. And this is on whether and who amongst the January 6th defendants can be charged with obstructing a legal proceeding.

What is obstruction? What is obstructive intent? It's all going to be really fun and interesting. We'll do a deep dive on that next time second I don't want to relitigate anything that we talked about

in the last episode David but I really want to get this off my chest go for it I'm tired of only having credibility when people agree with me amen

and it's similar to the free speech conversation we were just having it's when people agree with me. Amen. And it's similar to the free speech conversation we were just having. It's the same as the people who basically want free speech for the people they agree with. It counts for nothing. Nothing. If you only want free speech

for the speech you like. That's not free speech. That's like, David, what you've talked about, about how someone says they're a deeply tolerant person because's like, David, what you've talked about, about someone says they're a deeply tolerant person because they like, you know, black people or gay people. And it's like, what are you having to tolerate? What are, what is so loathsome that makes you a tolerant person

in that case? And they're like, no, no, no. I just mean like, I like people. Oh, so you're not tolerating them. You actually just like them. That's totally different. Similar thing, David. When I say something that the left agrees with, and they're like, she has a ton of credibility. I mean, this is someone on the right who's agreeing with us on the left. Great. And then when I say something that the left disagrees with,

I have no credibility and I'm just dead wrong. And there's no soul searching that maybe this person who agrees with me sometimes and disagrees with me sometimes or my tribe or my political opinions, maybe I should think more carefully about what they're saying. Maybe they have credibility or maybe they have a point. There's just, and I'm not saying that means I'm right all the time and one tribe is wrong all the time, but rather the knee-jerk reaction of when she agrees with me, she has credibility,

but when she doesn't agree with me, I question whether she ever had credibility in the first place. I don't like it. Oh, I'm so glad you opened that can of worms, Sarah. I'm sorry. I just had to. I'm so glad you did because here's the kind of thing that happens. And this is something like I'll get from the left. You know, someone will say, well, who's a conservative I can read or I can listen to? And I go, oh, well, you need to read David French. He

doesn't like Donald Trump. And they're like, just jamming along to all the anti-Trump stuff. And then I'll write something pro-life or for religious liberty or for economic freedom or all of the positions that I have that are quite conservative. And they're like, oh, you're just actually one of those assholes. And you're just, wait a minute, okay? Wait a minute. Again, with you, I'm not saying that I'm right all the time. In fact, I know that I'm not right all the time. And it's one of the reasons why I'm more libertarian

as I get older, because I realize human fallibility and I don't want as much power in the hands of fallible humans. But putting that aside for the moment, look, I know that I'm not right all the time, but if you find me really interesting and insightful in position A, and then a complete idiot on position B.

No soul searching there? That's not, it's not causing you any? No, okay. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Because I know for me, Sarah, the people I've enjoyed reading over the years are the people who've challenged me and pushed me. And I didn't, you know, I'll just give you an example. Andrew Sullivan is a guy who I've read for 20 plus years.

Sometimes when I read what he writes, I'm like, yes, Andrew. Sometimes I read it and I'm like, like, yes, Andrew. Sometimes I read it and I'm like, no, but you're making me think. And sometimes he's made me think in a way that I've come around to his point of view. And I think that it's really important if somebody affirms you and then turns around and challenges you to not immediately then say, well, they've just gone awry or they've gone astray. Have an open mind, just slightly, please. And that's not to say that anything we said last time was correct on anything in particular. Yes, we're wrong all the time.

We're wrong all the time. But nevertheless, yeah. All right, with that, speaking of fallibility, no, just kidding. We have Judge Brasher on next for this wonderful conversation about being a state solicitor general, the tensions, the conflicts, the fun,

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Use code advisory at checkout to save. Terms and conditions apply. Judge, thank you so much for joining us. This is a real treat. We just saw each other in Cambridge and you were on this incredible panel where you talked about being a state SG and I attacked you afterwards verbally and physically and asked if you would talk about some of the similar things on this podcast. So thanks for coming on. No, as I told you, Sarah, this is a podcast that I listen to, that my clerks listen to. And so when I told my law clerks

that you had invited me to be on this podcast, they were unanimous in encouraging me to accept the invitation to do this because they like the podcast so much. So thanks for inviting me. Wow. Thanks, Brasher Clerks. Shout out to that team. You've got at least a handful of fans in Birmingham, Alabama.

Well, let's start with state SG world. How did you become a state SG? We were actually classmates in law school. You were much older and cooler and didn't know existed, but you were there. You had a different hairstyle then but now you know please tell me judge it was a mullet please yeah yeah more hansen more hansen think uh thanks for the hansen i think it's what i was going for um it was a ponytail it was it was longer hair uh it was a short period of time. But yeah, so the way I got into state SG stuff is at law school. Like a lot of people in law school, I was kind of casting around for what am I going to do with my career? What's kind of a meaningful job for me? What am I interested in? I went to a talk by a guy named Kevin Newsom, who is now a judge on the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. And he was the Solicitor General of Alabama at the time. And I remember leaving that talk. The

talk was just kind of about his job, right? Kind of the cases he was working on, what he was doing. And I remember leaving that talk and thinking like, you know what, it seems fairly audacious, but I think I'm just going to say that my goal is to be the Solicitor General of Alabama when I graduate from law school. And so that was my goal. And the thing that really turned me on to that career path

when I heard Newsom talk about it was he was handling such interesting issues, but he was doing it with a really small team of people. You know, I'd heard people talk about their jobs in the Department of Justice, for example, in DC, and they were handling really super, you know, fascinating litigation. But, you know, they were doing it

with a team of, you know, 30, 40 people, right? I mean, it was just so bureaucratized. And the way Newsom told it is, you know, basically he was writing Supreme Court briefs and then filing them, right? There was nobody looking at him. And he was sort of crafting the state's litigation strategy and obviously talking to the attorney general

and other people like that, but it was basically just him that was doing that. And I just thought, wow, if there was an opportunity to do that, that's what I want to do. So I sort of set that goal for myself. And that's kind of how I got into it and what drew me to it.

Yeah, but okay, you graduate law school, they literally hand you a diploma on a stage that's built like one foot off the ground in the lawn. And you walked straight to Birmingham and became state SG. No, no. So yeah. So I clerked, you know, I did like what a lot of folks did do after law school, they try to get a clerkship with a judge. But I mean, I'll just be frank. I mean, one of the reasons why I really, really, really wanted to clerk for the judge that I clerked for, his name is Bill Pryor, he's on the 11th Circuit, is that he had just been the Attorney General of Alabama. And I thought, well, you know,

what better person to clerk for than someone who had worked at the Alabama Attorney General's office, who was the Attorney General of Alabama, with once again, this like, really kind of crazy goal in my mind of becoming SG. And then after that, it just so happened, it was just really fortuitous, the timing. As I was leaving my clerkship, Kevin Newsom was leaving his position as Solicitor General of Alabama. And so he went into private practice. And so I kind of followed him into private practice after I left my clerkship, was able to work with him, you know, got involved in the kinds of things that I think one would get involved in to kind of seek one of those positions. I ended up representing the governor in some litigation because a partner at the firm had a relationship with the governor.

I ended up doing primarily appellate work. And when the opportunity came to go leave private practice to go to the attorney general's office, then I took that opportunity because that's kind of what I wanted to do all along. Does Kevin Newsom know that there was sort of a fatal attraction thing going on? I mean, you started stalking him in law school, then you stalk him into private practice, then you stalk him onto the 11th circuit. I don't know whether he appreciates the weirdness of that, but I have told him this before, that he is responsible for my career path. So anything I do, good or bad, he shares some responsibility for that. The other thing that...

I hope he doesn't have a pet rabbit. Did, did have one. So Judge, I have to ask you because we haven't dealt with the most important issue yet. Because I was born in Alabama, Opelika, Alabama, and I need to ask the really critical question, War Eagle or Roll Tide? Right, right. That is the question, right? I am a judicial officer, so I don't know that I'm allowed to really pick freely. But I will say this, my wife is a huge Auburn fan. So whether I had a choice in the matter or not, War Eagle.

Well, her virtue is imputed to you entirely. All right. So you've talked about being a state SG before and we've had other state SGs on the podcast, former state SGs who all just rave about it as a job. And I do want you to get to rave about it as well. But something that you've said that I find particularly interesting is, if not an inherent conflict, an inherent tension in the job in terms of what you're representing, who your client is, and how you think about the interests that you pursue as a state SG. Yeah, so, you know, and this is kind of to put my state SG hat on

to think about this. I'm also kind of an observer of state litigation right now. You know, I'm more on sort of the bystander side of things and kind of think about what states are doing in litigation instead of doing it myself now. But the way I saw it at the time when I was at the attorney general's office was there are basically two kinds of interests that states have that get them involved in litigation, especially on the plaintiff's side, which is really where you see a lot of sort of the more interesting state litigation today, I think, is with states as plaintiffs. Two kinds of state interests. One is the state as a state. So, like the institutional interest of the state. And these are pretty easy to figure out, right? You know, a state as a state has an interest in its criminal laws being enforced and

being able to enforce those criminal laws without interference by the federal government, for example. You know, it also has the same kind of interest as a state that private parties might have, right? States are very large employers. And so states have, you know, interest in being able to hire and fire people that they want to hire and fire. States own a lot of property and they have property interests, right? All of those interests that get states involved in litigation are really the institutional interests of the state. And that is what the state is doing in litigation is it's kind of pushing and defending and advancing its institutional interest. But there's another kind of-

When Delaware is stealing your money from its cheap men. Yeah, exactly. When Florida is stealing your money from its cheap men. Yeah, exactly. When Florida is stealing your water. Exactly, right. So I actually filed one of the fun things that I got to work on as SG was litigation against Georgia. Well, Florida and Alabama team up against Georgia relatively frequently on water issues, you know, and that was just sort of, you know, of course, we were involved in that. It's our water, you know, so, you know, Georgia can't have it, right? So that's the state's interest as a state, you know, but there are also other kinds of interests that states have that are really representative of its citizens. So a state

is involved in litigation not because of sort of its own institutional interest, but because it's representing its citizens' interest. These are sometimes called quasi-sovereign interests. But, you know, states bring lawsuits all the time not because the state was injured by sort of has a state in its institutional capacity, but because it's looking to protect its citizens' rights or to advance, you know, something that its citizens wants. So you see this a lot in antitrust and in other kinds of kind of consumer protection areas, where a state is involved in litigation as a plaintiff against a company, for example, not because the company did anything to the state as a state, but because the company is, you know, doing something that is affecting the state citizens. And, you know, one of the interesting things about that I kind of dealt

with when I was SG, and I think that you see a lot in litigation just generally, is that sometimes these interests align, like the water stuff is a good example, right? The state as a state has an interest in protecting its own water rights. Its citizens also have an interest in having water that doesn't go to another state. But oftentimes, they conflict a little bit. So oftentimes, what the state may want as a state, its own institutional interest may not be the same thing that a state may want if it's really sort of representing its citizens, sort of litigating as a representative of its citizens. And so I think that's one of the interesting things that you see in state litigation, especially as states, as plaintiffs, is how these interests can align or conflict.

is how these interests can align or conflict. So, question I have, in Alabama, when is the SG on the pleadings versus when is it somebody else, you know, when is it somebody else from the Attorney General's office? And how separate are the AG and the SG in Alabama? Are you, how independent of the AG are you? And is this the same as, different from? What are sort of, what are their quirks in the way Alabama treats the

Solicitor General's office? Sure. So, the S, so I'll step back and talk a little bit about just kind of the way the AG's office is structured. So, the AG's office is structured where most of the people who work for the Attorney General are career people, right? And then they're set up in divisions, you know, that are kind of subject matter divisions, right? So consumer protection, white collar crime, things like that. In addition to those career people, the attorney general under Alabama statutes gets, you know, about a dozen positions that they can just fill with people that they want to fill those positions with. And some AGs historically have used those positions to create sort of new units. Some have used those positions to frankly just hire, you know, cronies into the AG's office.

But starting really with Jeff Sessions, when Sessions was the Attorney General of Alabama, he started using those positions to kind of bring in constitutional litigators, really, to the office. And the first one of those really was Bill Pryor, who he brought in to be sort of a super constitutional litigator. Pryor, who he brought in to be sort of a super constitutional litigator.

Pryor turned that position when he became the Attorney General into the SG position and then staffed that with a couple of deputy and assistant SGs. So all that to say is that the SG in sort of Alabama's AG's office has always been someone who is answerable at will to the Attorney General. And so connected to the attorney general in that way, you would not have a career person for the most part in that position. And the other kind of thing about that is that the relationship between the SG and the attorney general sort of changes from office to office, from AG to AG, as the AG decides how he wants to use that position and set that position up. I would say probably the way it

is now is sort of the way it was when I was there and the way it was before I was there. It's probably the way it's going to be until an attorney general wants to really change it. Whereas that the SG works really closely with the Attorney General, answers directly to the Attorney General, and has sort of a suite of litigation that the SG is responsible for. Why do you think there's been almost a coordinated, it would look like if you were an alien coming down, rise in state SGs? like if you were an alien coming down, rise in state SGs. I mean, you have Texas creating its SG position about 20 years ago-ish. Alabama's coming up about the same time. All of these

states suddenly putting a focus on appellate plaintiff side, as you noted, litigation. Why is that happening? Yeah. I mean, I think as a historical matter, I'm not really sure. You know, I heard sort of anecdotally that at one point, Chief Justice Rehnquist actually took an attorney general aside at some, you know, cocktail party or something and said, hey, the lawyers that the states are sending to argue these cases are really, really bad. Why are your lawyers so bad? Right. So that's an anecdote that I heard.

I don't know whether that's true or not, but that generated some push to sort of create a specialized position. I would say that, you know, the internal to the AG world, I think the attorney general's offices have gotten more interested in sort of national issues, national profile over the last, you know, 30 years. I think if you looked at kind of what AGs were doing

in the 1980s, for example, it'd basically be like a super DA's office, right? They're handling, you know, small time or maybe large, you know, criminal cases in their states. But that, for whatever reason, I'm not really sure why, you know, it's gradually become that the attorneys general themselves are getting more interested in national issues and they're raising their profile to a national profile. And that's made having an SG's office, you know, a value add for the attorney general. It's not just having an additional person around to make sure that the briefs look good.

It's having someone around that will assist them in handling the sort of national issue type things that they want to handle. So I think that's probably like just a kind of a realist view of it. Now, why the attorney generals are kind of becoming more national in profile, I don't really know, you know. I've got a bit of a theory, Judge, and see what you think. A version of Newton's third law of motion, but illegal version for every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. And there's been such an increase in sort of the regulatory state and such an increase in

executive assertions of executive authority for which there isn't so much a statutory check as there's the check is litigation, specifically state litigation. And you see it when there's a Democratic president, there's an enormous amount of red state litigation. And you see it when there's a Democratic president, there's an enormous amount of red state litigation against Democratic regulatory initiatives. When there is a Republican president, it flips back. But it seems to me that the state SGs have been absolutely sort of at the tip of the spear in the regulatory litigation world, regardless of, you know, and who's holding the spear depends on who's in the White House. Right, right. The tip of the spear or the last line of defense, I guess, depending on how you...

Right, exactly. So, I mean, you know, I think there's something to that. I mean, I guess I would say, I think just as kind of a bystander, kind of looking at this from kind of an academic perspective, I think litigation has gotten more important, right? You know, probably for the reasons that you're suggesting. And so if you're a good plaintiff, which states are a great plaintiff to have, then having that kind of plaintiff as a client is going to increase your profile and

make you more important too. But I think part of it is just that, you know, we're just seeing so much litigation driving public policy that, you know, anybody with kind of a good plaintiff, which the states are, is in the mix to be involved in national issues and great public policy. Can you give us any insight into how some of those coalitions come about? I mean, Alabama, let's talk about your Supreme Court cases, I guess, a little bit. But also, you know, when these red states are then forming these large coalitions to sue a Democratic administration, are you just picking up the phone and calling your state SG friends?

Are you Googling like Texas SG phone number? Like, how does that work? Oh, they're texting, Sarah. They're texting all the time. You'll have a text chain with all of you on it. It's like, who's taking the lead on this one? That's funny. I mean, how do you form the coalition?

Who gets to take the lead on the argument? All of that. And the other question I have is, do you let any SG stay in the text chain if they have an Android? Yeah, look, I don't know how they do it now. You know, right now, I mean, they're probably on like Snapchat or something, right? I mean, this has been a couple of years since I've been in the Solicitor General's office. But, you know, there are a lot of connections, I guess I would say, between AGs' offices. Both, you know, both between like the AGs themselves, right? I mean, these are all people who represent states. They're all in like national organizations.

in like national organizations. The National Organization of Attorneys Generals was one that was predominant when I was in the SG's position. You know, they meet at conferences, things like that. But beyond that, you know, it really is, so to go back to sort of the institutional versus kind of representational interest, you know, you can kind of look out, if you're an SGE who's paying attention to litigation, you can see what other states have the same interest is the beginning of every river in the West, right? So, you know, you know, that if you are a upstream state involved in water litigation,

that Colorado has an interest in that, right? You know that just because of what you know about their litigation, what they are. The same thing about sort of representing your citizens. You know, you can see what other states are doing in litigation, the amicus briefs they're filing, the kinds of arguments they're making. And so you kind of know whether they would be interested in whatever you're putting together. And then once you put those coalitions together, then, you know, it's kind of, it's a snowball effect, right? Once you put one coalition together, then the next time a similar issue arises, well, you just kind of get the same team together again, right? And so I think that's part of what you're seeing now too, to go back to David's question, you know, once you kind of create these connections

and develop these relationships, then it becomes kind of easier and easier to do it again and again and again. And, you know, for better or for worse, I think that's what you're seeing in a lot of the litigation. As you were, you know, when you were an SG, I guess I'm a little bit unclear on the, on the process. You joined the AG's office. Did you join the AG's office as the SG? I was the dep, or what, yeah, I was the deputy for about two years and then became SG and was there for about probably six years. It gets a little hazy because I started being nominated to things and. So when you are, when you are sitting in the SG's chair, so you're,

the courts you're arguing in front of, you're arguing in front of the Alabama Supreme Court, you're arguing in front of the United States Supreme Court, you're also in the federal courts of appeal. Are you only coming in when you're reaching that final layer of the court? When are you parachuting in? So we had sort of a policy on this.

And the gist of it, without getting into sort of the weeds of it, was that U.S. Supreme Court filings were SG. 11th Circuit filings were SG. Alabama Supreme Court filings were SG. court filings were SG. Three-judge district courts, which we actually had a couple of when I was SG, were SG. And then beyond that, it was kind of a judgment call situation on whether you wanted to get involved in district court litigation. I found district court litigation to be fun to be involved in. So I probably did too much of that as far as like, you know, good SG practices. But the idea being you would be involved in district court litigation

because it was the kind of litigation that you would know would ultimately be resolved on appeal or at the U.S. Supreme Court and not something that was going to be resolved, you know, on the facts in front of that district court judge. So, and then when I say sort of involved, you know, the objective at the Alabama SG's office was to review every brief and approve every brief that the state or its agencies filed in any of those courts. And so sometimes that meant writing it from scratch. Sometimes that meant just literally looking at it and making sure that it was making the right arguments. So there was a lot of triage involved in the job.

All right. Let's move a little bit more to the career side then. Advice you have for people who are listening to this and are like, yeah, me too, dude. I want to be career side then. Advice you have for people who are listening to this and are like, yeah, me too, dude. I want to be a state SG. Here's the problem. I'm not from a state. I came from the foam or whatever else. And so what do I do if I'm not from a state

that's going to hire me as SG? And I think here about our friends. So many, so many of our friends were not from the states that they SG'd. My husband, arguably, I mean, he did go to law school there, so that kind of counts. But Miffin up in Oklahoma, Rudofsky in Arkansas, Van Dyke, I mean, his is a tour of the West. of the West. Yeah.

Yeah. You know, the way, I mean, it's funny because I guess the only advice I can give is from my experience

and it was different than those. I mean, my advice to people just generally for if you want a particular kind of job

like that, like being SG or being US attorney or something like that, one of these jobs that like really sort of, you have to be in the right place at the right time is you really need to just kind of stalk that job. You need to, you need to just know. I can't believe that's your advice.

Yeah, yeah. You just need to, you need to know. Yeah, I guess, I guess that's, you know, to go back to your point about me following you around. But I mean, you really do. Like you need to know. Yeah, I guess that's, you know, to go back to your point about me following you around. But I mean, you really do. Like, you need to know who has that job. You need to know the people who used to have that job. You need to know the people

who are going to appoint the person for that job. And you just need to be in the mix for that job, right? These jobs... You need to be in their backyard looking through their windows at night. Send them emails asking them when they're going to leave their current position. But really, though, because the thing is, these jobs, they don't get advertised, right?

It's not like there's just a bulletin that's like, we need a new SG in Kentucky or something. You just have to really want to do it and to, like I say, know the people who are in the position to give you the job. And then, you know, the other thing you have to do is just actually develop the skill set that you're going to need for the job. And that's especially I have a lot of folks who come and ask me, you know, another great job is being an assistant U.S. attorney. A lot of folks ask me, like, how do I get to be an assistant U.S. attorney? And I ask them, like, what are you doing now? And they're like, oh, I'm at a law firm and I do bankruptcy law. And I say, well, that's not, you know,

you could be the best bankruptcy lawyer in the world, but you're not putting yourself in the position to be an assistant U.S. attorney. You have to at least do something to kind of put yourself in the realm of possibility based on your skill set to do that. And so that's kind of the other part of it. You can't get these kinds of jobs as like a fallback from your tax associate job at a DC law firm. You have to at least be within the realm of competency to kind of do the job. So those would be the two things I would tell them. And I'll use the word stalk.

I mean, one, I just think you need to know the people who are involved in that area of the law and who can give you the job. And two, you need to put yourself in a position where you're at least credible to say, like, I can do a good job at this. You know, it strikes me that this is like one of a number of jobs that feel closed off and mysterious,

but are actually more open in the sense that if you don't know anything about the law, like when I went to law school, I literally didn't even know, Judge, what a law firm was, like a big firm. I'd never heard of Skadden Arps.

Like I didn't know what was going on and didn't really have mentors in law school. So to me, the law profession was still kind of a black box when I got out of law school. And I just sort of took the, the, the glide path into a big law firm out of law school. But if you, if there if there's a variety of jobs from SG to assistant U.S. attorney to even things like being a local district attorney, you name it,

or working for like a public interest law firm like Institute for Justice or ADF like I did, where you kind of have to get aggressive in A, sort of learning the lay of the legal land and then B, finding people who

can guide you. But once you find the people, the world isn't nearly as closed off as it might seem. But it's finding, it's getting that door open a crack and you can see the path. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. That's exactly right. And the benefit of sort of public interest jobs is you can just kind of Google these people and they're on there, right? They're not hidden. I mean, you know who the attorney general of your state is, for example.

Yeah, and sometimes people don't mind to be directly contacted. You know, we get contact, Sarah and I get contacted by law students and when I have time, I'm happy to talk to law students and sort of give them guidance on how to become a columnist slash podcaster slash Twitter hate object.

There's a path. All right, let's move to your judicial career a bit. You now serve on the 11th Circuit. You had a year on the district court. I'm curious if you have any thoughts on the 11th circuit you had a year on the district court i'm curious if you have any thoughts on the biggest differences and what's more fun about being a district court judge if you have any but a cool thing about your service on the 11th circuit we've mentioned this a little is that you not only work with the guy you stalked for so many years but you also work with the judge

that you clerked for and it's a little reminiscent of gorsuch getting to work with the judge that you clerked for. And it's a little reminiscent of Gorsuch getting to work on the Supreme Court with Justice Kennedy briefly. Is that pretty neat or is it weird? It is great. It is great. I mean, and it's great in a way that's, it's difficult to explain.

Like I had a sitting with me and Chief Judge Pryor, uh, I guess it was last year and it was just so cool, right? To, to, to be up there with him and to, to ask questions and to, you know, get back in, uh, to deliberations and to deliberate on the cases. And, you know, and I mean, and I, there's like, when you're a clerk for a judge, you know, you're always trying to get the judge to agree with whatever position you have on the case, right? I mean, you, you know, you're not trying, maybe, I don't know. I mean, you're not trying super hard, right? You're not going to have a vote, but like you have some view of the case and you're trying to get the judge to agree with you. And sometimes the judge does,

and sometimes the judge doesn't. And it's just, it's so surreal and cool to actually have a vote when you're trying to convince the judge that you clicked for to agree with you. It's just so neat. And it's both just neat, and then also it's just the meaningfulness of it.

It's just difficult to describe, you know, to have worked for him and to have seen his whole career. He's now the chief judge and to kind of be there with him. It's just, it's just so neat. So, I mean, I just really, I just find that to be one of the more meaningful things about my job. So on the weird to cool scale, you think it's much more on the cool side? Is there any... I think it's weird and cool. That's the thing. I think there's no scale. I think it's

both weird and cool. It's really weird to me that I can call Judge Pryor and say, I disagree with you. And that's just really weird to me. I was not really allowed to do that as a clerk, right? I had no vote. But that's also super cool. And like I said, it's super cool when I convince him that he should vote the way I think. And it's super cool when we have a disagreement and we can talk through it as more or less equals on the court, which is really neat. More or less. really neat. Yeah. He is the chief judge and he has been doing this a lot longer than I have. So more or less. But it's still one vote. It's still one vote. It's still one vote. So moving over into your new life as a judge,

you're hiring clerks every year. We've talked to a number, if you had the privilege to talk to a number of judges, both at the trial court, district court level and appellate level. And each person seems to have at least a slightly different kind of philosophy on hiring clerks. So what's your sort of overall philosophy? What are you looking for when you're getting those clerk applications in? Yeah, well, so the first thing I guess I would say on that is that I think clerkship hiring is just really messed up. I mean, I don't know how deep in the weeds y'all have gone on this, but I mean...

Let's do it. Let's go as deep as you want to go. So when I'll just do it back in my day. Back in my day, when I applied for clerkships, it was very much a plan-based system. Most of the judges, probably 90% of the judges, waited to accept applications until after law students' second year in law school. So that means that you were sort of hiring someone the summer between their second and third year to start the following year. That was good for a lot of reasons. I mean, one, it was good because it gave a law student

an opportunity to do two years of law school and decide whether they wanted to clerk. And two, I think it was good for the judges because they got to see applicants that had actually done two years and see, okay, this is how they did their first year, their second year. These are the extracurriculars that they're involved in.

You got like a very full picture of this person. Clerkship hiring is just not that way anymore. At least for me, it's not. I start getting applications for, so I'm not especially good at math, but I start getting applications for people's sort of spring 1L year looking for a clerkship when they graduate. So they're basically applying for a job two years or so before they would get the job.

That makes it difficult for, I think, the law students because I don't think when I was a law student, I could have committed to a job two years in advance. I didn't really know what I wanted to do, right? And I think it's not great for judges because you hire these kids and you don't really have a lot of information about them. For all you know, right now, they want to do litigation and a clerkship is going to be really meaningful for them. But then they're going to take securities regulation and really like it. And they're going to want to do corporate law and they're going to

change over the course of their law school career. That being said, you have to hire people when they apply. So that's what I do. I hire people when they apply. So you've got one semester of grades and that's the full law school record you have so far? Yeah, I try to wait until they have two semesters of grades. So I try to not hire one spring semester. I try to at least wait until June. But unfortunately, what I found is when I tell kids, I'm just not hiring right now, it's not as if there's a beneficial thing that happens in the world and they say, you know what, you're right, I should wait. Just someone else hires them. Right. It's this kind of vicious cycle that I'm not sure there's a way to fix.

So for our non-appellate people listening, there have been efforts through the years to solve this problem. This is a problem that keeps coming up. There was a hiring plan that judges sort of all agreed to. That fell apart then in what, 2010 maybe or so. Then there were efforts to revive the hiring plan. Can you just walk through a little bit of where that all stands now? Any efforts to,

because this is in nobody's interest. It's not in the law student's interest. It's not in the judge's interest. This is a disaster, but there's a race to the bottom, so to speak. A tragedy of the commons of law clerks. Yeah, it's a classic collective action problem where it would be beneficial for everyone to wait. But like I said, if you're the one person

trying to wait, you just don't end up hiring people because they all get hired by somebody else. So yeah, I mean, the way I kind of understand it now is there is a plan. There are some judges that are sticking to the plan. That plan sort of starts where people would apply in the spring, early summer after their 2-0 year. There's an electronic mechanism, sort of a website that people can apply through, and it makes it really easy to apply. And that is a thing that some judges are trying to do and trying to be on the plan. When I was a district court judge, I tried to do that. And the negative aspect of that for me, especially as a district court judge, was I put up a posting on this sort of electronic bulletin board, and I got hundreds and hundreds of applicants

almost immediately. And it really was a burden on me to screen these kids to see if they really wanted to clerk for me. Because all they were doing was checking a box to apply to everybody who had an opening. It was too easy. Yeah. It was too easy. Yeah. And so it was, you know, I was going through saying, well, you know, I don't know this person, especially as a district court judge, you know, it's like, well, this person's never been to Alabama. They've, they've, they don't know anybody that I know. You know, they've only lived in Philadelphia, New York City. Are they going to be able to drive? You know, like you sort of ask all these questions that it really just puts the burden on you to try to figure out, like, is this a legitimate candidate?

I mean, can I actually even interview and hire this person if I wanted to? You know, so that really hasn't worked. So anyway, so where I am right now, just to wrap up this really kind of nerdy conversation is I have my own email address that I've created to accept applications. The email address is brasher.clerkship at gmail.com. There you have it, listeners. So if you want to email an application... There you have it. So I've set that up and that way people can apply to that if they want to apply electronically.

And I tried to wait to hire people. But at the same time, I kind of hire people as I get applications. That's just kind of... That's, I kind of hire people as I get applications. That's just kind of, that's where I am now. I've stopped trying to fight the fact that people are applying super early. And I just live with it. What would you say is your style at oral argument? Do you go in with your questions already prepared? Or do you sort of roll with the waters and just try to probe what they're saying? Yeah. So, you know, I think it kind of depends. So the way I prepare for oral argument is my law clerk's draft bench memos on the briefs and the cases that kind of do some extra research,

kind of test what the lawyers are saying in the briefs. I read the bench memos and briefs and the district court's opinion and various parts of the record and whatnot. And then the Friday before an oral argument week, I sit down with my clerks and kind of roundtable the cases and we talk through each case. We go kind of one by one. And this is, you know, this is kind of a standard appellate judge thing. I'm not unique in this. So we kind of talk through those cases. And then usually, I kind of bring questions to that roundtable that I want to kind of talk through. And then usually after that roundtable, I have kind of remaining questions that I want the lawyers to talk about. A lot of the way I feel like this is true,

and I hope this comes across, the way I approach oral argument is from a guy who did a bunch of oral arguments as an appellate advocate. And so I liked oral arguments. And I also really liked it when the judges asked me questions, when they asked me to address what was bothering them about the case, because that way they gave me the opportunity to make my argument, right? To jump in and actually had a concern about my case, but they weren't telling me about it. So I wasn't in a position to disabuse them of that notion, right? The worst thing I thought as an advocate was if a judge was concerned about the strength of my case and they never told me about it and they just, you know, went on their merry way and continued to have that concern. So for that reason, my questions tend to be along the

lines of, it seems like the strongest argument against your position is this. You know, what do you say about that? Or something very compelling that you're, you know, that Judge so-and-so just said or that, you know, opposing counsel just said was X, Y, Z. You know, what is your response to that? I think that tends to be the kinds of questions that I ask at a rule argument. And once again, the reason is because I legitimately want to know what your answer is. Are you a hot bench?

You know, I think the 11th Circuit generally is a hot bench. So, yeah. I mean, well, I guess, here's the thing too. The other thing, this is a line that I used to use when I was a lawyer, and I got it from another lawyer who probably got it from another lawyer, which is to tell judges, if you've stopped listening while I'm still talking, please let me know. you know, I feel like the point of the oral argument is to have a conversation. And I want the lawyers to know, you know, what's going through my head and what I want to talk about because otherwise it's kind of a waste of time

if the lawyers are just kind of shooting in the dark about what they think the issues are. So this is going to be more of an observation than a question. And feel free to agree or disagree or neither. But I have had something on my mind lately, and I'm actually going to be recording a podcast here in a little while later today about the question. There's been all of these arguments about the legitimacy of the courts and the legitimacy of the judicial branch, et cetera, et cetera. And I've long been a defender of the legitimacy of the courts and the legitimacy of the judicial branch, et cetera, et cetera. And I've long been a defender

of the legitimacy of the courts. And one thing that I have started to tell people is if you doubt the seriousness of the judiciary overall, listen to oral arguments and contrast them with say congressional hearings and ask yourself which of these branches is taking their job very, very seriously. And it's funny, I actually have, there's a listener to this podcast, hi Trevin, who writes for the Gospel Coalition website, and he talked about how listening to Supreme Court oral arguments,

he actually wrote a whole piece on this about how listening to Supreme Court oral arguments had sort of helped restore his faith and the possibility of civil discourse in the country, which I think is actually, and Sarah did this kind of nod like, oh, interesting, that this is, I think, I think that this is something where

if you are a high school civics teacher, if you are somebody who's sort of wanting to introduce our students to our system of government functioning as it should, I highly recommend going to see oral arguments. I highly recommend watching smart people taking important issues seriously. So that's my observation, Judge.

Well, I mean, I can't compare court proceedings to Congress. But I'll give you an anecdote, though, which goes to your observation. So when I joined the bench, when I got on the 11th Circuit, my parents started coming to stuff, right? I mean, this was, you know, as cool as it is for me to be an appellate court judge, I mean, it's even cooler for them, right? I mean, they're, you know, my dad is an engineer.

My mom is a teacher. So they don't have any law background or anything like that. They, you know, they think the whole thing is just fascinating. So they started coming to oral arguments in Atlanta. And then they started bringing their friends to oral arguments in Atlanta. And now they listen to and attend oral arguments when I'm not even on the panel. Whoa. Just because they have sort of the same observation that you did,

which is they just think it's just like a really neat experience and it's just such an interesting way that the government works. And it makes them feel, you know, I don't know. I mean, I guess I can't speak for them, but I think it makes them feel, you know, something good about government that they can just kind of walk into a courthouse, sit there, see people debate an issue, and then move on to the next issue.

I mean, they just find it absolutely fascinating. So it's been my experience here that like civilians kind of out in the world, people debate an issue and then move on to the next issue. I mean, they just find it absolutely fascinating. So it's been my experience here that like civilians kind of out in the world, you know, find this to be a great experience. Yeah, it is fascinating. I would actually encourage listeners who, because we got a lot of law curious listeners who are not lawyers, if you get a chance,

go see a state Supreme Court oral argument, go to an appellate court oral argument and watch it. And amidst all of the unrelenting cynicism about government that you're going to hear, go see a state Supreme Court oral argument, go to an appellate court oral argument and watch it. And amidst all of the unrelenting cynicism about government that you're gonna hear, it's actually a really interesting and educational experience. And it might restore your faith in the system just a little bit.

All right, this is my last question. It's to help all of those clerk applicants out there, perhaps. What is your favorite thing to do outside of the law? And you can't say spending time with family. This is, I mean, I think it's probably become clear through this conversation that I'm a huge nerd. One of the, I do this every weekend. I do the Wall Street Journal Friday crossword puzzle, I do this every weekend. I do the Wall Street Journal Friday crossword puzzle,

which has a meta in it. I don't know. Are you guys familiar with this? No. So there's like a secret. Okay. So this is like, I mean, my current law clerks call this like CIA level stuff.

It's basically you do the crossword puzzle and then there's like a secret answer in the crossword puzzle. It's difficult to describe. Anyway, that's why I do that every weekend. So I've done that for like years that I do it. And sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't. There's a... Let's see, neither of you are related to the Wall Street Journal.

Okay. There's apparently... I've only started entering this contest recently. But apparently, if you have the right answer and you send it into this email, they draw from the right answers and you can get a coffee mug with a Wall Street Journal coffee mug. So my law clerks certainly make fun of me

because I could just buy a coffee mug, but I'm doing this kind of crazy crossword puzzle game contest every weekend. And you haven't gotten the coffee mug yet. I still haven't gotten it. I think the odds are probably stacked against me. I think there are probably thousands and thousands and thousands of people who do this and get the answer right.

But I love that game, though. I just think it's awesome. Well, this is a very nerd-friendly podcast. So you are at home here. I was half hoping you would start speaking Elvish to really demonstrate your nerd credentials. So do you do other word based games like Wordle, et cetera?

Yeah, sure. I do Wordle and Cordle. I do Cordle first and then I do Wordle. Cordle's my warmup. That's, that's, that's exactly the way I do it,

Sarah. That's exactly the way I do it. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay, so what did you think of, it was two days ago, snafu was the answer. That is an acronym,

but the argument was made that it's an acronym that has turned into a word over time. I'm annoyed on two fronts. One, it's an acronym. That's not a word. An acronym is literally not a word. It's letters that stand for words. But two, to the extent people have turned it into a word. An acronym is literally not a word. It's letters that stand for words. But two,

to the extent people have turned it into a word, it's actually not what the acronym means. It's a separate, like when people say like, oh, there's been a small snafu, that no, it doesn't actually make sense if you, which we can on this family podcast, explain the acronym. I don't, I don't have a position on that. I really didn't think about it. I just really didn't think about it all that much. It's time to schedule oral argument on the plane. He's worried this will appear before him. You know, I just accept what Wordle says his words, I guess. I don't really think about it. Yeah. Wow. My usual starting word is audio. So I feel like I got snafu pretty soon. I feel like I got that in three. I do orate.

Oh, interesting. That's a good one. But I don't get the I then. I start with irate. But the R and T are important. Oh, irate. Irate gives you an I, an A, and an E, and a T. I mean, that's a strong word. Yeah. That's pretty good.

And with that, thank you, Judge Brasher, for joining us. This was a real treat. Y'all can't see this, but he has this gorgeous view out his window and a large plant that is thriving.

It says, it's just, it's a very interesting, this is not your wood paneled, mahogany, you know, leather bound books office. So congrats on defying that stereotype too. Yeah. Yeah. We're a, we're look, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a relatively young judge. We do a paperless office. You know, we do, we do a lot of, I have a modern, yeah. Like I was telling you, Sarah,

like judges love their chambers. Mine's like a modern chambers. I love it. That's great. And I don't see any papers on your desk. I can't see the whole desk, but it looks very neat. No. No, the only thing I have on my desk is a water bottle and a stapler. I don't know why I have a stapler.

Why do you have a stapler? Paperless author. I mean, that's a great point. The stapler's going. It's the end of the stapler today. You can mark it. Well, thank you. Have a great rest of your week.

Yes. Thank you, Judge. All right. Have can mark it. Well, thank you. Have a great rest of your week. Yes. Thank you, Judge. All right. You know, have a good time. Is it Milan? Milan, absolutely. Milan, okay. It's whatever is not Milan. Yeah, right. You're from Tennessee, David, right? So, you know, West Tennessee has all these cities named after like greats, like Memphis. Nancy's from Paris. My wife's from Paris. Paris. Yes. Yeah. There's a Moscow. Oh, yeah. I forget. I mean, there are a bunch. Like whenever they got, whenever like the settlers got to West Tennessee,

they were just like, pull the names from the, you know, the great cities. So I grew up in middle, I grew up in central Kentucky and I live in middle Tennessee now. In central Kentucky, we had Versailles, which led to one of the most embarrassing moments in college, which was me opining about the content of the Treaty of Versailles. was me opining about the content of the Treaty of Versailles. And then, of course, we had Athens instead of Athens. Yeah, and right down the street from me in central and middle Tennessee is Santa Fe instead of Santa Fe. Okay, that's just, that's just, you're trying.