Judge Learned Hand

I wrote so faithfully when I was in China, and we were always on the go there. But now, I again find it difficult to find time to write. I really can't believe it is now December. I find that when ever I go on a trip, the next few weeks after returning fly by incredibly fast. Maybe it was something to do with E=mc2.

I was thinking about what I should write. This is my family blog, so I think it should be about my family. Nevertheless, I always find it extremely difficult to take my mind off of work. This leads me to think about Judge Learned Hand. Judge Hand was a judge on one of the federal circuit Court's of Appeal. I don't think his writing or legal reasoning were greatly supirior to other federal judges who wrote appellate opinions, but for some reason other judges in writing their appellate or district level opinions very often have cited to Judge Hand's opinions to give support to their own findings. (It is a very common practice for appellate judged to cite other cases, and then to either show how the cases support their findings, or how the case is significantly different. It is much less common, however, to site the name of the authoring judge unless it is one of the US Supreme Justices that they are citing). This then begs the question as to why so many other judges have cited Judge Hand's opinions and also stated the author's name. I think the silly, obvious answer is the correct answer. Judges like to say, "according the the learned Judge Learned Hand in XYZ Case..." I guess this shows that judges are people too.

Judge Learned Hand's name came up in about 2,600 published federal Court of Appeals cases and 230 US Supreme Court cases.