"The Hindrance of a Law Degree": Justice Kagan on Law and Experience

Laura Krugman Ray

Elena Kagan, the current United States Supreme Court's newest Justice, has also proven to be its most innovative writer. In place of the usually dry and formal prose that readers of the Court's opinions have long encountered (with Justice Scalia's vigorous dissents and Chief Justice Roberts's urbane observations the rare exceptions), she consistently leavens her judicial prose with an assortment of rhetorical devices. Her arsenal includes colloquial diction, direct invitations to the reader to participate in her analytic process, and vivid metaphors that link legal argument to the experience of everyday life. That stylistic approach is not merely decorative or playful. It is intended to bridge the gap between authoring Justice and lay reader, a strategy that Kagan has explicitly embraced. In a recent interview she said of her opinion writing that she “tr[ies] very hard to make it understandable to a broad audience.” And “one of the ways” of reaching that audience is “to drop the legalese” and “try to express things in the way people would express it in normal conversation.”