03/30/2022
Sad to see this.
Judge Posner could be a real mixed bag. He was an old-line conservative in the truest sense, unlike the rightwing extremism that passes for "conservative" today. He obviously was brilliant as a legal scholar, but sometimes got so caught up in his own brilliance that he could overlook the obvious. Oral argument could be a pain or a delight, depending on which side he was on. If his mind was made up, he would never let you explain why he was mistaken.
When Judge Richard Posner, who remains the most-cited legal scholar on record, abruptly retired from the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in September 2017, the legal world was stunned.