[rayiner]

As a lawyer, I disagree. The judicial system depends on the faith of ordinary individuals in it. That means opinions must be written for the public to read, not only other lawyers.

My view is that nothing is so complicated that you can’t explain the gist of it to my mother in law (an intellectually curious woman who nonetheless never finished her college degree). In fact if you’re in front of a jury, that’s exactly what you might have to do.

[jancsika]

You explaining the gist of a law and a Hacker News reading the law directly have two very different probabilities of returning a "cockamamie interpretation."