Editor's Foreword

• Publication year: 2023
• Author: Written by Benjamin G. Shatz

EDITOR'S FOREWORD

FOREWORD IS FOREARMED

Written by Benjamin G. Shatz
Editor-in-Chief

Your Editorial Board here at California Litigation thrives on feedback and letters to the editor. One especially meaningful letter comes from Sid Kanazawa at ARC in Los Angeles, who writes:

"I loved Litigation v. Transaction Work: Who's the 'Real Lawyer'? in California Litigation's last issue! It was a hoot to read, and I could hear cheers erupting from both sides of the debate as I progressed through the back and forth!"
"On a more serious note, I thought the article could have been the lead thematic piece for the entire issue, much of which was about our increasingly dysfunctional dispute resolution systems. Our current culture emphasizes distrust and the fight for our rights. In that adversarial process, we negatively teach each other and our fellow citizens that we are enemies who cannot be friends. But we are not enemies. Nor are we representing enemies. We are all part of the same society, albeit one that needs and thrives on conflict."
"New ideas, new paradigms, new approaches, and new perspectives on justice, fairness, and liberty cannot spawn or grow or transform our society without challenges to the existing status quo and power structure. Without conflict, we stagnate and die. But as subtly pointed out in the article, our job as lawyers is to practically build bridges and agreements between collaborators, opponents, juries and judges — regardless of whether we are litigators or transactional lawyers. Shaping how we get along and work together is our job."
"As lawyers in a free society, we have a duty to remind each other and our fellow citizens of our shared values and what we have in common (e.g., our constitutions, statutes, prior agreements, common goals and ethics) and thereby bring people together to build buildings, cities, and nations — and to step out of the dissonant past and into a more harmonious and just future. As Shakespeare's anarchist aptly recognized, 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.' We lawyers are the glue that keeps our society together. Thank you for a great article and publication!"

We hope that the issue you're now reading will spur similar reactions. In the spirit that a foreword should forearm you, here's what's in store in the ensuing pages. We begin with Kirk Jenkins's annual California Supreme Court review. No one puts in the time and crunches the numbers like Kirk—and we all get the benefit of his analysis. Be sure...