A way to get your judicial opinion cited (maybe).

I don’t know much about writing judicial opinions, let alone writing one that others will cite. But it can’t hurt to explain a legal concept with an original, memorable metaphor. For instance, banking lawyers will likely remember the case that this headnote came from as the “puff of smoke” case. And every appellate lawyer I know will remember that a case out there illustrates clear error by comparing it to the stench of dead fish. They may not remember the citation or even the case title, but they know they can find it by searching for the phrase “dead fish.” (As I did to come up with it for this post.)