Our last two feature essays, Posts 312 and 314, reflect a sharp departure from usual Legal Evolution content, primarily because of the seriousness of events in the broader world.
The Legal Evolution readership is composed of innovators and early adopters. Thus, we spend a significant portion of our lives trying to improve the status quo — to make it more efficient, humane, data-driven, and diverse. Yet, if you take the time to wade into Posts 312 and 314, you’ll see that Jae Um and I have concluded that the status quo has more foundational problems that we can no longer ignore.
In Post 312, I explore the topic of Gilded Age lawyers to better understand the present, which is marked by similar levels of economic inequality and political populism. History shows that these forces have the power to rip apart a representative democracy.
In Post 314, Jae Um looks starts with the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and discusses a well-funded, well-orchestrated, multi-decade effort to reverse history. Further, we’ve made this formidable movement stronger by failing to acknowledge how it works, instead choosing to focus on what’s good and comfortable about the present.
Folks, these are big problems that are made worse by diminishing or ignoring them. So we’ve made a decision not to.