Judicial opinion-writing shifted from creative grand style to formalist drabness by 1900.

Evidence

What about the quality of the work of the judges? Did it decline in the last half of the century? This is, of course, a very hard question to answer empirically. Karl Llewellyn called the style of Gibson, Marshall, and Shaw the “grand style”—​the style that looked for “wisdom-​in-​result.” It was based on broad principle; it was sweeping, magisterial, and creative. This style was all but dead by 1900. It was replaced by what Llewellyn called the “formal style,” which stressed order and logic in the law. Opinions tended to be bombastic and repetitious. Strings of useless citations filled the pages of the reports. There was bad logic and worse English. — Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law, 3570

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines Llewellyn’s ‘grand style’ versus ‘formal style’ distinction, useful shared vocabulary for the course.
• XREF: Connects to later chapters on the Langdell-era formalism and judicial review as reactionary fortress (ch52, ch91), the institutional story threaded across this book.