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A prescription for a wicked problem.


Parts I ( 239), II (240), and III  (245) of this series have canvassed the matter of balkanized legal services regulation.  While not a comprehensive review of all dimensions of this large, complex system, I have drilled down to some of the examples of this phenomenon. And, in Part I and, especially, in Part III, I describe some of the regulatory pathologies that emerge from a system that is configured in such a balkanized way, pathologies that are problematic from a consumer welfare perspective but are deeply entrenched.
Continue Reading Our Bar Federalism, Part IV (246)


“It is no exaggeration to say that the Restatement of the common law is the most difficult as well as the most important public work ever undertaken without the aid of government by the legal profession in this or any other country.”  William Draper Lewis, “Present Status of the American Law Institute,” 11 NYU L Rev 337, 343 (1929).

This essay is about the importance and value of building shared “legal infrastructure,” which is a term coined by the eminent economist and law professor Gillian Hadfield in her book, Rules for a Flat World (2017).
Continue Reading Legal infrastructure and the forgotten story of the Restatements (207)


No one really knows how the game is played //  The art of the trade  // How the sausage gets made // We just assume that it happens // But no one else is in // The room where it happens

Lin-Manuel Miranda


Since graduating from law school in 2015, I’ve spent a lot of time in the room where it happens. I’ve served in leadership roles on local, state, and national bar associations; I’ve traveled around the country speaking with lawyers and law students of all sorts; and I’ve helped the sausage get made.
Continue Reading What is going with the Washington State Bar? One (young) lawyer’s perspective (101)