While fumbling around for some additional research for our Law School in a Box project, I was looking for some tips on how judges keep lawyers on both sides of aisle smiling, and came across the work of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Judge Michael Eakin, who’s infamous for his, well, “poetic” justice. Take for instance the seven stanza ruling he delivered in a case where a wife claimed that her hubby’s lie about her wedding ring should invalidate their prenup. Eakin ruled:

“A groom must expect matrimonial pandemonium,
When his spouse finds he’s given her a cubic zirconium
Instead of a diamond in her engagement band
the one he said was worth twenty-one grand…”

Of course, not everyone digs the justice’s lyrical rulings, to which Eakin has a ready response: “You have an obligation as a judge to be right, but you have no obligation to be dull.”