I am now mostly retired. I've always been a voracious reader and about 10 years ago -- after the children left for college and I had a bit more time -- I started reading books outside of the law and across various other disciplines: history, economics, political science, philosophy and social sciences. It's my firm belief that in order to truly understand the world and how it really works, a person can't just live inside his or her own discipline. To do so risks missing much of what's important and true about the world. For example, the law is incredibly useful and helpful. But it also operates inside of the power structures and civilization that created it. The law is thus "relative" and incomplete standing alone. To truly understand our world requires reading and learning across many fields.
My semi-retirement means that I finally have even more time to do even more of what I have wanted to concentrate on for years: writing, researching, learning and teaching. In what I hope will be a long retirement (I'm 58 and my dad is still alive at 89), I want to record what I learn -- in the law and outside the law -- and share it with you. I hope to peel away layers of the American onion to view -- or, if you prefer, pull back the curtain on -- how this country and its institutions actually work. And share what I find with readers of this site.
What this site is
Revealing Reality is intended as an independent educational journal about law, history, political institutions, corporations, media, voting, democracy, and the ideas that shape American public life. At its heart, the site is designed to elucidate and educate!
Too much of our shared history becomes forgotten or obscured by time. Events in history get boiled down to slogans or slanted or obfuscated by people and institutions with an interest in gaining or retaining power. Public and private actors often have reasons to hide, shade or simply lie about current and historical events. And suppress those who would seek to enlighten a public that those in power would just as soon remain docile and compliant.
Because a docile and uneducated public can be more easily manipulated by those in power, I want to educate others with this site. Liberty and freedom absolutely depend on an enlightened and educated public that understands the institutions and systems that govern them -- whether governmental, quasi-governmental or private.
I want to look beneath the headline for the legal rule, beneath the public explanation for the institutional incentive, beneath today’s controversy for the history that produced it, and beneath formal political rights for whether ordinary people can actually use them.
That does not mean every accepted account is false, every institution is corrupt, or every complicated event is part of a conspiracy. Sometimes the familiar explanation is right. Sometimes it is partly right but leaves out something important. The point is to look carefully, follow the evidence, and try to tell the fuller story.
Let me also be clear about what I am not offering. I have no secret sources, insider information, or exclusive revelations. What I bring is more than three decades of work in commercial litigation, business law, estate planning, and tax law. Over the years I represented and counseled thousands of clients, from large corporations and wealthy families to ordinary business owners trying to sort out a problem and make a sound decision.
I also bring a stubborn curiosity, a love of research, and a lifetime of taking complicated legal, tax and other principles and explaining them in plain language. Teaching was one of the things I enjoyed most about practicing law. I loved taking a complicated legal problem, breaking it down into plain language, and giving clients the tools -- the understanding -- to make good decisions for themselves about their situation. That is much of what I hope to do here.
What you will find here
The heart of the site is its long-form essays: deep dives into American legal, political, corporate, and economic history. The opening series traces the development of the corporation in America—from an entity the states once kept small, temporary, and tightly restricted to the colossal institutions we live with today. I want to cover the good, the bad, and the ugly. The benefits and the costs. The pros and the cons. In a word . . . reality.
Alongside the essays are shorter takes on current events, written from the perspective of someone who spent a career watching law, money, business, and power bump into one another. There will also be opinions on subjects I find important or thought-provoking. Sometimes there will be things on here that I simply need to get off my chest and think you may enjoy reading and reacting to.
For readers who want to understand the machinery of American law, there is a section reviewing important court decisions from the past two hundred years and another explaining basic legal principles in plain English. A case such as Marbury v. Madison, for example, is more than a name in a history book. It helped establish the Supreme Court as a co-equal branch of government, and what happened there still matters today.
The site is meant for thoughtful nonspecialists. Difficult subjects do not have to be made simplistic, but they can be made understandable. You should not need a law degree, a political science degree, or a secret decoder ring to follow along.
The weekly features
Not everything here will be a long essay, a short take or some other weighty subject. Each week, six regular features rotate in:
- Historic Quotes — important words from the past, along with enough context to understand who said them, when, and why they mattered.
- Words of the Week — two interesting words you may not know, defined and put to use.
- The Old Cartoon — a political or historical cartoon from long ago, with a short explanation of what it meant and why.
- Lawyer Joke of the Week — because any profession that takes itself too seriously deserves what it gets.
- Courtroom Exchanges — funny moments from courtrooms that sometimes have to be read to be believed.
- Client Wisdom — small nuggets of common sense gathered from clients during more than thirty years of practice. I learned plenty from law books, but some of the best lessons came from the people sitting across the desk.
These lighter features are there because learning should not always feel like work. Sometimes a good quotation, an old cartoon, an unusual word, or a well-timed joke can make a point better than another thousand words.
The standards I am aiming for
Impartial. Unbiased. Fair. Accurate. Complete.
Those are goals and standards, not a claim that I -- or any human being -- can write without a point of view. I have opinions. So do you. Readers may disagree with my conclusions, and that is perfectly fine. In fact, thoughtful disagreement is part of the point.
What I promise is to make a good-faith effort to present the evidence honestly, separate fact from interpretation, take serious opposing arguments seriously, and avoid pretending that a hard question is simple when it is not. I will identify sources where practical and try to give readers enough information to check the work for themselves.
Mistakes will happen. When the evidence shows that I am wrong, I should say so plainly and correct the record. Digging in merely because an error is embarrassing is no way to learn and no way to earn a reader’s trust.
The journal’s mission is fairly simple:
- Reconsider familiar stories by going back to primary sources, historical evidence, legal decisions, and careful argument.
- Explain important cases, legal principles, public policies, and institutions in language thoughtful nonspecialists can understand.
- Examine the gaps between public opinion, institutional incentives, and government policy.
- Study how media, government, education, corporations, and technology influence what citizens notice and believe.
- Trace the political effects of concentrated corporate wealth and other forms of organized power, both in the past and today.
- Explore possible reforms to elections, campaigns, voting, business, and democratic institutions without pretending there is always one easy answer.
- Treat readers as busy, intelligent citizens—not as people who should be scolded for failing to keep up with every corner of an impossibly complicated world.
Conclusion: Why I am doing it
As I said, I practiced law for more than thirty years. What I enjoyed most was not the arguing or the strategizing. It was teaching: sitting across from a client, untangling something complicated, and handing it back in a form the client could understand and use.
I believe most people are intelligent enough to make good decisions when they have the relevant facts and a fair understanding of the situation in front of them. Revealing Reality takes that same belief and applies it to citizenship.
Citizenship carries responsibilities—not just to ourselves, but to our country, our neighbors, and the generations that come after us. That means staying engaged, thinking critically, and making a real effort to consider what will be good for the country and for our children and grandchildren, not only what is easiest or most profitable right now.
That is a serious purpose, but I do not intend for the site to be solemn all the time. I hope it will be informative, thought-provoking, occasionally surprising, and sometimes entertaining. Most of all, I hope it helps curious readers understand a little more about how we got here and decide for themselves where we ought to go next.
Thanks for visiting. Look around, read deeply, disagree when you think I am wrong, and come back often.
To learn more about the idea behind the title, read Why “Revealing Reality”?
The essays and other materials on this site are independent research and commentary. They are not legal advice.