Legal Simplicity Quotes

Formalist judges needlessly complexity the law in part to avoid the struggle to understand the complex real-world environment that generates much of the business of the modern court.

Laws are made for men of ordinary understanding and should, therefore, be construed by the ordinary rules of common sense. Their meaning is not to be sought for in metaphysical subtleties which may make anything mean everything or nothing at pleasure.

A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.

Laws should not be subtle. They are designed for people of average understanding.

This procedure [selecting the simplest law], however, has no logical justification but only a psychological one.

No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.

I like my politicians and my judges and my lawyers to be simple. I think if you worry about where your hemline is you're really not concentrating on the world crisis.

I think the law should be comprehensible not only to those who work with it but also to those who are governed by it.