Editor’s Foreword Class Without Ostentation

By Benjamin G. Shatz

Benjamin G. Shatz

Change is afoot at California Litigation, physically, digitally, and ethereally. You can feel our tangible change in your fingertips right now: We’re using better paper. We have always prided ourselves in standing out from the pack of periodicals through the quality of our pages — both written content and actual sheafs. But after years of using a highly textured (and highly costly) pulp product, we are now saving money by using an improved paper, one easier for our printing house and illustrator to use. We still have our distinctive touch, but at a sounder price, to the delight of the Section’s Treasurer, the Bar, and, really, all of us. Our new fine paper preserves our class, but drops our ostentation — and operating budget.

"But," you exclaim, "what is this ‘paper’ of which you speak? I’m reading this electronically." Well, bully for you! This reflects another change we’re embracing. Soon we’ll be functioning at levels rivaling the late Twentieth Century, we hope. Our website, http://litigation.calbar.ca.gov/Publications/CaliforniaLitigation.aspx, now has some of our recent material online, available to Section members only. We positively hope to continue this electrifying development, but we face surprising challenges with technology and — as you, of all readerships, will appreciate — legal issues. In his latest Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, Chief Justice Roberts pointed out that "courts will often choose to be late to the harvest of American ingenuity." Well, the same is true for this legal publication: In less stylistic a phrasing, we are damn slothful in adopting tech, let alone high-tech. But we’re working on it. Really.