A few things:

1. Some wondered why we didn’t blog anything for a couple of months. No reason other than that there are so few reported civil opinions nowadays that random distribution can open large gaps between noteworthy ones. (We mean “civil” in a traditional sense; there are opinions galore if you want to read about battling spouses, refractory juveniles, and those with various sociopolitical discontents, which courts sometimes and for certain bureaucratic purposes class as civil disputes.) Its interesting that when two cases worth blogging did finally come along (Gibson and Brittner) they came neither from a trial result nor even, in their origins, from the civil bench. That is the way of the future; the judges’ long efforts to drive civil trials from the courtroom have largely succeeded and their recent efforts to claw back some of the business largely won’t.

2. Some will want to be aware of Ansley v. Banner Health. We didn’t blog it because it is just another battle in the long and tiresome (but lucrative) balance-billing war between the plaintiffs’ bar and the hospitals. Spoiler: the hospitals lose.

3. Some citations in our blogs, both new and old, will begin to include links to cases and statutes. The Casetext legal-research platform has been reaching out to law bloggers to arrange this. We agreed to it as a service for readers, not as a plug for Casetext, though it seems a reasonable alternative to the complexities — and cost — of the Big Two if you need straightforward case-and-statute stuff.