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The sesquipedalian septuagenarian - That is, Judge Bruce M. Selya of the First Circuit Court of Appeals, who at 72 continues to write perhaps the wittiest and wordiest opinions in the federal judiciary

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From: The Boston Globe
Date: 20061210
Author:David Abel is a; David Abel

AN AIDE ONCE complained to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes that one man in a thousand understood his opinions. I write for that man, Holmes is said to have replied. By comparison, Judge Bruce M. Selya, according to a former clerk, writes for one in a million.

In more than 1,000 decisions over nearly 25 years on the federal bench, the past 20 in Boston as one of six judges on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, Selya has beguiled and at times baffled colleagues and litigants with obscure and occasionally less than judicious verbiage.

Over the summer, for example, he ...

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