Judge Charles Breyer proves that a redaction can be worth a thousand words. In this case, a Hewlett-Packard shareholder action that probably would generate more media if Carly Fiorina were a serious candidate for any office, Judge Breyer sat atop 8 motions to seal thousands of pages of documents. Rather than cursorily deny the motions — including a number made by Wachtell Lipton on behalf of Hewlett-Packard — or even scold the lawyers with a traditional benchslap, Judge Breyer gave them a taste of their own medicine and issued a denial after two and a half pages of completely redacted reasoning.
Kudos Judge Breyer, you are truly raising the bar on creative benchslappings.