That's definitely part of it; even for the specific question of bench trials brought all the way to final judgment, there's a lot of state courts (and even some state appeals courts!) that just don't do opinions for all but the most noteworthy matters.
I think some of the confusion is more about what counts as an 'order'. For laypeople, we tend to think of judicial orders as serious decisions: even if we recognize the difference between a final appealable order and something like a motion to stay, the latter's about as far down the line as we really put in the same bin.
But there's a lot of other things that are 'orders' in the sense that the court will fuck you over if you don't obey it, but not 'orders' in the sense of any serious legal decision. At the lowest level, there's a lot of stuff that's just 'we're going to next meet at X date' or 'parties should send me Y paper of Z pages on A, B, and C' subjects, withdrawal or substitution or an attorney, extension of time, yada yada. These are orders, technically, but they're just standard process stuff rather than serious evaluation of legal policy. In the middle, there's things like orders on motions pro hac vice, or discovery orders, or even demands to prepare around certain topics. These are 'decisions', but they're decisions that have a fairly standard answer, or where the logic underlying them is self-explanatory in the order.
At the higher end, there's stuff that could plausibly be serious and sometimes even final orders if granted, but basically never are and don't really need serious introspection to get there: this entry is an order on motion for judgment on the pleadings, and that'd be worth a long digression if it were actually granting judgement, but it's not, and it's very rare for that sort of order to exist. Recognizing a jury verdict is technically an order, and there's some ability for judges to issue things like judgment notwithstanding verdict, but it's not something you have to explain most of the time. Sometimes this stuff gets an opinion, and sometimes it doesn't, even when it's a final order.
By contrast, it'd be a little weird to see a final judgement for a federal case (where not settled, defaulted, consent judgements, yada), without an accompanying opinion explaining the law in detail. It probably happens, though the examples I can find tend to be civil forfeiture cases that are closer to default than I'd consider.
The messy bit is where, exactly, this order falls. Grants of writ of habeas corpus are kinda appealable orders, depending on situation, but they're not exactly the 'everybody's presented their full argument and had their day in court', either. I'd expect to see at least some attempt at a serious explanation for a high-profile case, but I can't swear every single one has been treated seriously by the courts, either.
((On the gripping hand, neither Grok nor Claude could find an example of a federal grant of the writ of habeas corpus without an accompanying opinion. Which doesn't mean much!)
gattsuru
12hr ago
Necessary starting caveat: Unikowsky is an absolute putz when it comes to anything Trump-related, and his analysis should be recognized as on the "ought" side of any is-ought divide, and, more damningly, an "ought" that will not apply to any case where he doesn't like the victim. That doesn't completely destroy his analysis about AI effectiveness, but it does undermine how and what he's evaluating.
For more specific problems:
- Hallucinations happen. Newer models are better about avoiding them, but they're still prone to it. This is critical because, whether it's a hallucinated citation, incorrectly summarizing the contents of a citation, or hallucinating facts or claims by parties in the case, it's a central example of sanctionable behavior.
- Even large-context models struggle with the amount of information in a lawsuit, and most models aren't large-context (and many APIs will obfuscate when you're getting downgraded).
- Worse, they get loopy under certain nonobvious situations: going toward the last 20% of a context size, repeating a word too often during a prompt, so on.
- It can be very hard to get the LLM to understand core constraints for a specific environment. Citing out-of-circuit cases as if they were binding, not checking if a case was overruled or constrained to its own four corners, even basic formatting stuff can be a problem, here.
- Most LLMs, unless very carefully prompted, are people-pleasers. They'll quite happily give you the answer you want, even if you aren't explicitly saying what you want, even when this means disregarding well-known counterexamples
There's a defense that people, even lawyers or judges, make many of these same mistakes, and that's true. It's still a problem and a limitation.
AI can be a useful tool, but it's a tool.
gattsuru
14hr ago
January 27th. It turns out a judge can read and write copy someone's homework without needing a month, sometimes.
The Court therefore enjoins Defendants the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, its Director, and the Attorney General of the United States, as well as their officers, agents, servants, employees, and all persons in active concert with them and who have actual notice of this Judgment from enforcing within the jurisdictional boundaries of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (i.e., Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas), the provisions referenced in paragraph 2 against the Plaintiffs to this action or anyone who is a member of one or more of the Plaintiffs as of the date of entry of this judgment.
This doesn't require any organization hand over their membership lists for a federal government group that hates them, but more critically, it also applies to all of the plaintiffs, not just the specific combination of buyers and sellers that the original version did that made it completely pointless. Now, if/when a Democratic administration wants to say fuck it and bring these enforcements again, there will be genuine risk that the seller is covered by an actual injunction. And it didn't even take a universal injunction to do it.
Just three days short of a year.
For tile, specifically, you'll usually see some waterproof membrane or backing board, leveled with grout of self-leveling concrete, then using thinset to keep the tile attached, and the finally grout to interfere the gaps.
I don't think I've ever seen that used for carpet, hardwood, or linoleum, and at least in my neck of the woods tile is rare outside of restrooms and kitchens. Both my current house, last rental, and several of the other houses I'd looked at when in the market had joisted floors, though I was specifically looking for houses with a basement.
More options
Context Copy link