It is late in the afternoon, on the fourth day of a five-day jury trial, and my soon-to-be-disbarred opposing counsel settles in for his mid-trial, afternoon, nap. I make my obligatory “do you see this guy?” eye contact with the judge. The judge sees. With a slight nod and a shrug, the decision is made
BY GRANT ROST I don’t read much fiction. However, this past year I’ve probably read more fiction than I have in 30 years. Sometimes life encourages escapism. Sometimes it practically mandates it. I just finished my most recent escape. I tore through the books of Cixin Liu’s Three Body Problem trilogy. Perhaps Netflix will send
BY JULES EPSTEIN When we look at something – an inanimate object, an event unfolding – does that stimulus go into our brain and tell the brain “here I am, recognize me!” Put more simply, is it like a camera where sensory input paints the picture on the ‘film.’ Or is the brain wired differently,
BY GRANT ROST A few nights ago, I came across my daughter reading The Fellowship of the Ring. She’s a voracious reader, but this was really her first full-fledged effort with Tolkien. I noticed she was nearing the end of the book. I inquired on how it was going. “Ugh. I just want to be
By Jules Epstein What wins the day in arguing a motion in limine? A single argument? Or is it a decision tree approach of “Your Honor, we prevail because of Rule A, but Rule D also applies and so might F?” One answer may come from studying the dilution effect and an experiment on
By Mike Golden Future Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman was ten years old, living in a chicken coop in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France. He was on the run from the Nazis. It was early 1944, and his father was dying; as a Jew in German-occupied territory, he couldn’t come out of hiding to get treatment for his
By Kate Donoghue “Just take emotion out of it.” We have all probably been given, or have given, this advice when faced with a tough decision. But while we may try, doing so is not actually possible when it comes to how we make decisions. We all grew up in different households, under different
By Grant Rost It’s hard to keep up with the vernacular used to describe a given generation of people. I know that I’m considered to be part of Gen X. I feel like the only reason I know what age bracket a “Boomer” falls into comes by virtue of knowing the date World War
By Jules Epstein Are we wrong to front bad facts? Is that “sponsorship,” i.e., giving the bad fact your imprimatur? The question may sound crazy – and if you read to the end you should see that the answer to each of those two queries is a resound “no.” But sponsorship theory lives, and it
One day, long after my wife and I had lost a bid on a house, we got a call from our realtor asking us if we were still interested in the house. We were. Since the owner had come back to us to ask us for a new offer, I bid $4,000 less than the