Zygote!

That's the title of this month's Gilbert Submits in today's DJ, which muses:

Lawyers who tout their victories are the biggest bores. Even I must endure these braggadocios now and then at legal functions. There are, however, occasional instances when a young lawyer, seldom an older one, apologizes for a bad oral argument he or she thinks they made in my court. I seldom do not have the slightest recollection of these misperceived failures. My usual reply: “Please, don’t give it a second thought, you were terrific,” or, if I have a slight recollection, “You were fine, and your brief adequately covered the salient points.” These “stretches” are not muttered under penalty of perjury. And if the foregoing raises questions about the value of the constitutional right to oral argument, I defer that perennial inquiry for another day. But here’s a hint. Write a good brief.