Spring hath finally shaken off the winter of Arlington’s discontent, and host John Wrench gathers IJ barristers Sam Gedge and Josh Windham for a scene that proves that all the law’s a stage. The trio ponders why powerful constitutional lines often go unspoken while villainous doctrines persist for decades. Next, they debate whether strategically timed law review articles are really amici in academic costume (“The play’s the thing/Wherein I’ll catch a citation”), and Sam wields his editorial dagger against footnotes that skulk in the wings of legal briefs. The conversation turns to oral argument preparation—from Josh being mistaken for an actor rehearsing lines, to circular outlines, to generative AI—and closes with a meditation on whether the ideal dissenting opinion is performance art, a righteous aria, or a whispered cue for future casts. Timbs v. IndianaOrin Kerr’s post on strategically timed scholarshipJosh’s argument in PA Open FieldsJudge Wilkinson’s opinion in the Abrego Garcia caseDouglas Murray’s Democracies and Death CultsSarah Maas’s A Court of Thorns and RosesNetflix’s Il Gattopardo (The Leopard)Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire
