. . . or at least, the author of the “bad-man theory” of the law. I was delighted to learn that Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., has his own wikiquote page. Here are some of his inspirational musings, which are sure to brighten your day:

1. One has to try to strike for the jugular and let the rest go.
2. A page of history is worth a volume of logic.
3. Lawyers spend their professional careers shoveling smoke.
4. A good catchword can obscure analysis for 50 years.
5. The only simplicity for which I would give a straw is that which is on the other side of the complex — not that which never has divined it.
6. A word is not a crystal, transparent and unchanged, it is the skin of a living thought and may vary greatly in color and content according to the circumstances and the time in which it is used.
7. If you want to know the law and nothing else, you must look at it as a bad man, who cares only for the material consequences which such knowledge enables him to predict, not as a good one, who finds his reasons for conduct, whether inside the law or outside of it, in the vaguer sanctions of conscience.
8. State interference is an evil, where it cannot be shown to be a good. [Except when forced sterilization is involved–see item 9, below.]
9. We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind….Three generations of imbeciles are enough.
10. Get down, you fool! [A timely  suggestion to President Lincoln, who came under fire at Fort Stevens.]

Not the same greenway that we’re talking about, but you get the idea.

The scariest moment in my life happened a few years ago. I’d taken Caroline and Jack down to the greenway, Roanoke’s riverside mixed-use path. It was a bright, cold day. Caroline was rambling along on her ridiculous Dora the Explorer bike, which was already two sizes too small. Jack had outgrown his balance bike but wasn’t yet comfortable enough to ride his bmx in traffic, so he was driving some scooter thing. I was bringing up the rear. The kids were, for the most part, under control and sticking to the right side of the path.

We were headed along a straightaway when Jack started to veer onto the left side of the path–and directly into the path of a large man on a road bike. You can probably see him already in your mind: spandex head to toe, like he was ready for the Tour. Maybe he felt like he was in the Tour, because it looked like he was pushing 20-25 mph. And he wasn’t slowing down. That didn’t really matter, because given the speeds and distances involved, he wasn’t going to be able to slow down. I caught Jack and dragged him out of the guy’s path just in time. If they’d collided, I swear the rider would have cut Jack in half.

Now, I say this as an avid cyclist and runner who uses the greenway on a regular basis: That rider was a clown. I know that Jack should have been on the right side of the path. So what? He was three or four years old and maybe 35 pounds. The cyclist had a duty to pay attention and keep his bike under control.

It still burns me up just thinking about it.

So fast forward to last week, when the Roanoke Times ran this article about a cyclist who won a $300,000 verdict after colliding with a runner. You can imagine that I was primed to have a negative reaction. But I read the article and didn’t see much of anything to get upset about.

Then I checked out the comments.

You should check out the comments. They’re nuts. Here’s a personal favorite:

WHY IS EVERYTHING ABOUT “IT’S THE OTHER GUYS FAULT”. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY IS OBSOLETE. ALSO, OUR TORTE SYSTEM INVITES SUCH AN ATTITUDE. SHAME ON THIS JURY! SHAME ON THE BICYCLIST! SHAME ON THE BOTTOM FEEDING ATTORNEY THAT INITIATED THE ACTION! MONEY…MONEY…MONEY!

Here’s another:

This makes me sad. Sad for this poor man. Sad that savvy bloodthirsty attorneys have the know how to pick out and seat the dumbest, most incopetant, and gullible juries; and guarantee an unjust verdict. I’m disgusted.

To be sure, these are some of the more strident comments. They’re not fairly representative of all of the comments in tone, but they do highlight some themes that run through a lot of the responses–and some of the comments I’ve heard on the street over the past week or so.

I’m afraid that the people raising these complaints are missing a few key points. In no particular order:

First, they don’t know anything about the case. That’s not their fault. One of the most notable features of the article is that it doesn’t summarize the evidence the jury heard. The reporter cites pleadings, motions, and out-of-court statements by the lawyers. But that wasn’t the case the jury heard. As a result, there’s nothing in the article that can fairly be read to suggest that the jury made a mistake, let alone that the jurors was incompetent or gullible. For example, the commentariat seems skeptical that the runner turned without looking. One commenter even thinks that the plaintiff should be held in contempt for lying on this point. But let’s give the jury a little credit. For all we know, the runner admitted that he turned without looking. People do have a refreshing tendency to tell the truth under oath.

It’s clear that plenty of people are upset about this result. But they’re upset about a mental picture that they’ve created about the case, without hearing the evidence. The case they’re complaining about may have little in common with the one that the jury actually heard.

Second, the lawyers involved in this case aren’t bottom feeders or monsters. I know  both of them. In fact, when I had to arrange a CLE  for the local Inn of Court a few years ago, I lined the two of them up to deliver a mock motions argument. I did that because they’re experienced and respected advocates. In particular, I’m confident that nobody in this case tricked the jury, packed it with fools, or snuck anything by defense counsel. The defendant’s lawyer is an AV-rated former president of the Virginia State Bar and a permanent member of the Fourth Circuit Judicial Conference. He is not, as they say, a potted plant.

Third,  there was a judge in the courtroom. He does this stuff for a living. Turns out that I know him, too. (Lots of name dropping in this post.) He is an excellent judge and, like defense counsel, he is not shrubbery. The article specifically notes that the judge found sufficient evidence of negligence to submit the case to the jury. This implies that the defense tested that evidence with a motion to strike. If so, the plaintiff’s case made it by both the defense and the judge on its way to the jury–which suggests that there was something to it.

Fourth, let’s be clear about what the jury found, and let’s try to put it in plain English. This appears to have been a straightforward negligence case with a contributory-negligence defense. As far as we can tell from the story, after hearing the evidence, the jury concluded that:

1. The runner probably acted in an unreasonably dangerous manner (apparently by failing to keep a proper lookout);
2. The runner’s (probably unreasonable) actions probably caused injury to the cyclist; and
3. $300,000 was a reasonable estimate of the injuries that the cyclist suffered.

Also, the runner did not convince the jury that it was more likely than not that the plaintiff behaved unreasonably, and that her unreasonable behavior caused her damages. That’s it. The jury did not find that the runner was a bad person. It did not impose a per se rule that will make the greenway wildly dangerous for pedestrians or cause insurance premiums to skyrocket. It just listened to the evidence in this case, heard some instructions from the judge, and reached a few factual conclusions.

Nothing about those conclusions strikes me as offensive or wildly improbable.

The comments include sentiments like “I find it odd that a jury would be able to be convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the cyclist in no way contributed to her injuries.” That very well might be odd, but there’s no indication that it happened here. This wasn’t a criminal case. Nobody tried to prove anything beyond a reasonable doubt. The cyclist had to prove that the runner owed her a duty to exercise reasonable care, that he breached that duty, and that his breach of the duty caused her injury. She didn’t have to disprove the defendant’s assertions; the defendant had the burden of proving them. And when we talk about “proof” in a civil case like this, we’re just talking about proving that something is probably true–think “more likely than not,” rather than “beyond the shadow of a doubt.” When you think about what the jury actually did, it’s hard to get all that worked up.

Fifth, many of the comments suggest that somebody (or everybody) is acting in bad faith. The plaintiff’s lawyers put her up to it. Or she’s just out for the money. Or she’s lying. I don’t accept that, at all. In a PI case like this, both the plaintiff and the defendant are trying to work through one of the worst days of their respective lives.  They both hire lawyers to help them through the process, and they bring their claims to a judge and jury. These are all ordinary folks just trying to do the best they can in a difficult situation. Nobody is there for fun. The $300,000 the plaintiff won is not a jackpot; it’s compensation for damages that she actually suffered and proved to the jury–things like medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering. (Again, we don’t know the specifics because we don’t know the facts of the case.) It’s just intended to get her back to zero after the losses she suffered.

tl;dr This a lousy situation. But it’s not a lousy situation because someone won money, or because lawyers are vampires, or because your insurance rates will go up (they won’t), or because you can’t use the greenway anymore (you can). It’s a lousy situation because two people had a really bad day and someone got hurt. They hired lawyers, who worked the case up and brought it to a judge and jury. The members of the jury took two days out of their lives–away from their families, jobs, and friends–to listen to the evidence and deliver a verdict. There’s no indication that they did anything other than they best they could, given the situation. And like everyone else involved in the case, they deserve better than the treatment they’re getting.

Winter is coming. That sixth book? Not so much.

Today’s post considers the writing process of one of the most successful authors alive.

But first, a confession: Big nerd here. I could not be more excited for the new season of Game of Thrones that starts on Sunday. To get ready, I reviewed the Washington Post‘s interactive murderlog to catch up on relevant deaths. I binge-read Leigh Butler’s amazing Read of Ice and Fire for the first four books, in case the show forgot to kill anyone important. I watched Seth Meyers’ doomed dinner party with Jon Snow, just because it’s hilarious:

(Wait a minute . . . Robb Stark wasn’t stabbed at his own wedding. He was murdered at the Red Wedding, where Edmure Tully married Roslin Frey. You know nothing, Jon Snow!)

And in the course of my exhaustive preparation, I came across a blog post that makes a scientific wild-ass guess about Martin’s progress on The Winds of Winter, the long-awaited sixth book in his series. The post itself serves as prima facie evidence that, as big a tool as I am, I barely register on the SF geekdom spectrum.

More important for our purposes, though, the post includes a link to a summary of Martin’s writing process. Here’s the short version of that process:

1. Martin does not have a hard outline for his seven-book series. He knows basically where the story is headed, and he lets it evolve organically. He ends each book when it gets too long, or when he reaches a natural breaking point.
2. Martin writes lots and lots of draft chapters, then eventually finalizes them. He also writes partial chapters and fragments when ideas grab him.
3. Martin does not write in a linear order. Instead, he occupies a particular character’s headspace and stay there for weeks, writing a series of point-of-view chapters for that character. This can result in timeline problems, and it can also cause him to write way too much material for a character just because he’s fun to inhabit (ahem, Tyrion).
4. At the end of the writing process, Martin murders every character you love and throws in a scene where starving children fight over a half-cooked puppy. (Okay, I made this one up.)

This really struck me, because it’s just about the opposite of the way that you’d approach an appellate brief.

Now, I recognize that epic fantasy and appellate advocacy are about as distinct as any two genres can get. And I appreciate that Martin is a super-genius writing the great fantasy epic of our time, while I’m just a hack with a blog. Even so, his organic writing process is basically a recipe for missing deadlines and overshooting page limits. That’s generally okay, if you’re the American Tolkien putting together work that people will be reading fifty years from now.* It’s somewhat less okay if you’re bound by deadlines and strict word counts, and your readership has very limited time and patience. Martin’s writing process is an object lesson in what not to do as an appellate lawyer.

So how could we clean it up to make it work for us?

1. Brainstorm, and hash out all of your ideas in the beginning of the process.
2. Draft a hard outline. Explain your ideas in full sentences. Follow the outline.
3. Write in a linear manner, from start to finish. That is how your reader will approach the document.
4. Edit mercilessly. Aim to cut 50% of your first draft, and to file a brief that comes in at 50% of the page or word limit.
5. Never kill off Oberyn Martell.

This may take some of the fun out of the process, but it also makes things a lot more efficient and predictable.

*Actually, no. Even then, it’s not okay. It leads to soggy filler like A Feast for Crows, a bloated travelogue wherein all of the characters we don’t care about wander about in the rain thinking sad thoughts.

Image of George R. R. Martin by David Shankbone (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons