For the longest time, I considered Justice Scalia the best writer on the Court, with a two-way tie for second between the Chief Justice and Justice Kagan. Since Scalia's passing, I have leaned towards Kagan as my favorite writer. She writes in a plain style that reads conversational, without having to try too hard. When humor is called for, she uses it subtly. When she has to drop the hammer, she bludgeons brutally. And there is never any doubt what she is saying. The prose is clean. When the Chief writes alone, it is a joy to read. You can tell he is really having fun. I thoroughly enjoy his annual addresses, because they are pure, unadulterated, Roberts, without the filter of his judicial role. Alas, in contested cases, the Chief, far too often, obfuscates his own writing to make his reasoning malleable. And his tortured reasoning (see Dobbs concurrence) masks his superior legal acumen.
Who is currently number three on the list? Justice Barrett may be the Court's fastest writer, by a large margin. She is also climbing up my ranks for the Court's best writer. I had the joy today of reading Bartenwerfer v. Buckley. And I truly mean, joy. It was a joy to read. The substance would usually make my eyes glaze over: the Bankruptcy Code. But Barrett wrote a crisp, fun, unanimous opinion. It read like an impromptu lecture the former professor would have delivered in her statutory interpretation class. And it involves a nerdy analysis of grammar, with a relatable hypothetical.
The case turned on whether debt for money that was "obtained by . . . fraud" was dischargeable in bankruptcy proceedings. The statute was framed in the passive voice. So who does it apply to? Just the person who committed the fraud? Or also to the fraudster's business partner? Barrett framed the issue cleanly:
