Bench & Bar: August 6

Stories in this week's episode:

Why?

Retired Second District Court of Appeal Justice Arthur Gilbert spends this week's column asking why -- from bicyclists riding without helmets to judicial opinions that run past 50 pages, largely ghostwritten by staff attorneys and rarely trimmed.

The public defender crisis Clara Foltz tried to prevent

As Los Angeles marks 25 years since renaming its courthouse for Clara Shortridge Foltz, William M. Paparian argues the public defender system she invented still hasn't caught up to the balance she demanded between prosecution and defense.

Are AI-generated briefs persuasive?

Appellate lawyer Myron Moskovitz set ChatGPT and Claude loose on a case he'd already won, and found the AI-written briefs logical and well-researched -- but blind to the strategic instinct that may have decided the appeal.