Judges aren’t the law, despite whatever Yale might be teaching these days. And what judges say and write doesn’t supplant the actual law as written down in the Constitution and code books. What judges say only really matters if it’s necessary to resolve an ongoing dispute. So maybe the country would be better off if the legal profession devoted less attention to the status of judges and more attention to the act of judging.
— Judge Benjamin Beaton of the Western District of Kentucky, in remarks published by the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, on his disdain for the use of “Your Honor” as an honorific for judges by members of the legal profession. “For goodness sakes, this country fought a war and wrote a Constitution to blot out titles of nobility,” he said. “It’s right there in Article 1, Section 9, Clause 8: ‘No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States.'” Beaton originally delivered the address at his investiture.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.