I was blown away by today's Ninth Circuit opinion by Judge Bress.
It is an amazingly well-written opinion. Seriously: Perfect. It's a super-complicated topic; something that's facially just about attorney's fees, but the underlying issues involve the Erie doctrine and complex federal jurisdictional issues that sometimes bedevil even the best of us.
But here's the thing: Judge Bress not only analyzes the issues entirely correctly, but also writes an opinion that's concise and on point and just amazing. Beautiful, even.
Really, really well done.
The good thing about this one is that it's a straightforward and (relatively) non-political fight, even though it's about whether a particular Indian tribe gets fees from California for not negotiating in good faith about a gambling compact. That helps. Even if you're a moderately political judge, with perhaps strong feelings on one particular side of the left-right spectrum, when it's a case like this one, where everyone's just trying to get the decision right, there's less of an incentive to manipulate doctrine or push things in one direction or another. In many instances, including here, that's where judges can really shine. And this opinion is a great example of that.
Not that judges can't potentially write "political" opinions that are also really well done; maybe even, at times, beautiful ones. It's just that it's less common.
Regardless, this is a fantastic opinion. I'm affirmatively jealous.
