Emily Bazelon

So it's like a kind of precursor to the civil rights movement.

I was thinking about a character who looms very large for me, different era entirely, Portia from Merchant of Venice, who, you know, deploys all the tactics of clever lawyers to try to change society.

what we think of now as the quality of mercy in the courts in her Shakespearean time, somehow that was like a comforting, reassuring sort of trial to go back to.

I mean, it's a time, obviously, of deep prejudice without a lot of the

safeguards of the rule of law that we think of now, but she was able to achieve a better result by making legal arguments.

So maybe I'm trying to be with you in some ways, David, in going back to a kind of touchstone where we can imagine lawyers having a good effect.

Thanks.

Fun.