J-Law 41 — The Judicial Decision Portfolio

Each litigant is entitled to a portfolio of 25 opinions authored by their assigned judge on matters substantially related to their case, provided before proceedings begin.

Veteran attorneys prepare for a judge the way scouts prepare for an opponent — by studying film. They pull the judge's prior rulings, learn which arguments land, which citations persuade, which framings irritate, and they shape their entire presentation accordingly. Analytics companies now sell this intelligence by subscription to firms that can afford it. The litigant without those resources argues to a stranger, guessing at preferences that others in the room know cold.

Twenty-five substantially related opinions, delivered before proceedings begin, hands every litigant the same film. The portfolio reveals the judge's reasoning patterns, priorities, and tendencies — knowledge that shapes strategy more than any treatise. Judicial opinions are already public documents in theory; this law makes them public in practice, assembled and delivered rather than scattered across paywalled databases.

The expected counterargument: compiling case-specific portfolios for every litigant is an administrative burden, and many trial judges produce few written opinions at all. Automation answers the first half — courts already store rulings digitally, and a database query matched to case type runs in seconds once the system is built, a one-time investment smaller than most courthouse technology projects. The sparse-opinion objection points at a different defect this declaration also addresses: a judge with almost no written, reasoned rulings to compile has been deciding cases without explaining them, and the portfolio requirement joins the reasoned-rulings requirement in ending that practice. Where fewer than 25 substantially related opinions exist, the litigant receives what exists, and the shortfall itself is information. Insiders have never treated this intelligence as too burdensome to gather. They treat it as valuable enough to sell.