Passim is passé

Today's DJ has Passim, and its abolition, by 4/2's Justice Raphael, replete with many noteworthy items, sparked by SCOTUS's proposed rule change to "cancel passim." He writes:

• The use of passim is generally a matter of convention, rather than court rule. California Rule of Court 8.204 requires a table of authorities but prescribes no specifics. The California Style Manual does not address passim, other than declare it among the terms that should be italicized. Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28 requires that cases be “alphabetically arranged,” and that the table contain “references to the pages of the brief on which they are cited,” but is mum as to passim.
• I really don’t care, even though I’m a regular brief reader. And that’s because, as far as I’m concerned now, our state rules could eliminate not just passim but the entire table of authorities. At least since the Covid-19 pandemic, I no longer use the table of authorities at all.
• Because an electronic version of a brief is searchable in this manner, I may not have used a table of authorities to find pages in over two years, and I do not expect to do so in the future, at least so long as I’m reading electronic copies.

Today's DJ also has Chaos Theory: ADR Services neutral Nathan Mihara tries to restore order in the confusion and conflict of dispute.

Retired 6th District Court of Appeal Justice Nathan D. Mihara has a relatively straightforward view about the law’s role in our world today. “When people ask me what the law’s about, I tell them, ‘It’s complicated, but I can sum it up this way: The purpose of the law is to create order out of chaos,’” Mihara said. “Whether you’re talking civil, criminal, probate – it doesn’t matter. There’s confusion out there. There’s chaos. There’s conflict. The purpose of law is to create peace and really to create some sensible order out of that chaos.” Mihara spent 27 years on the California Court of Appeal in San Jose, authoring more than 250 opinions and reviewing thousands of criminal and civil appeals during his nearly three decades as an associate justice.

Finally, to be filed under "Good help is hard to find," Law360 has Paralegal accused of poisoning atty wants suit trimmed: "A paralegal who is accused of stealing from her former boss, causing his disbarment and attempting to poison him has asked the Texas Supreme Court to undo lower court rulings that have allowed the lawyer's suit against her to proceed."