Inaugural Message
Everything At Issue | Substack
Dear Reader,
For around a century, American attorneys were taught that the gold standard of legal practice was Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.’s crystal ball. We were taught to transmute the power of the secular prophet into cold, hard cash; to read judicial opinions like tea leaves in exchange for worldly rewards. Those of us who can read the proverbial writing on the wall can profit from playing prophet. But some of us choose differently.
The path of the prophet is often challenged by black swans. Black swans are world changers we don’t see coming. They are anomalies that exasperate and delight us with an endless capacity for surprise. Look around. The evidence is everywhere. We are living in a world made by black swans.
Credit: Fox Searchlight Pictures, Black Swan (2010)
Like Eve Babitz who disputed Joan Didion’s doom prophecies, black swans are the “freakish, beautiful outsiders”[1] who endeavor to unsettle our fated dooms. When they manage to inspire others to sublime pleasure, causing a potential disruption of the standing order, black swans “[b]ecome art, not decoration.”[2] In Hollywood, especially, the self-enchantment of world changing art was always challenged, but never defeated by our “ever-present fear[s] of total disaster (earthquakes, fires, random murders).”[3]
Once revealed, a black swan no longer exists. Revelation is an existential problem for those who monetize the prediction the swans symbolize (I’m talking about you Peter Thiel). But like the suicidal performance of Natalie Portman depicted above, the swans themselves probably do not care if they are wiped out as they generally do not cash in on the secular prophecies they facilitate. The livelihood destroyed with the black swan is that of the secular prophet, and much if not most of the black swan phenomenon is probably the artifice of those who farm black swans for a living; trapping them in limbo.
Some attorneys still follow in the Holmesian path of the prophet, artificial as it is, and so they spend their careers gazing into the proverbial crystal ball of the future. Others choose the path of the muse. Those who chase inspiration through the wonders of art and science retain the capacity for transformation that may require self-destruction.
For one who does not want to be a black swan, the paradox of self-obliterating revelation may be proper. By traveling through death in search of new life they might find a way to unlock the cathartic comforts of nostalgia that keep them chained to the past. They may find a way to immolate their “pictures of Egypt” that no longer fit the free people, systems, or communities they became.
The Supreme Court of the United States seems to preserve the mystery that surrounds it, perhaps to maintain institutional reverence. But the irony is this: In an era positively ruled by black swans, institutional stability is unsettled. Where the whimsy of a reality-TV-star-President is treated as “law” by a radical, politicized Supreme Court, the feeling is motion sickness and a longing for normalcy.
But unjust norms are one of the major causes of the present flight of our black swans. The dooms we long to resist and the hopes we dream to chase are linked at the hip. Like the chicken and the egg, we cannot have one without the other. Yet, the doomsayers ought to hush and make space for the Babitzian phoenixes of our day. Presently, there are many black swans flying up from the ashes — conspicuous — aflame — but what does it mean?
Revealing a modern-day Babitz as she takes flight may paradoxically interrupt her nature as a black swan. But it may also emphasize or even facilitate her actual nature as a phoenix, muse, or some other characteristic of greater importance. The proverbial obliteration of the black swans, which is the sub-textual theme of Everything at Issue, is merely the tearing of a secular veil in order to see what is underneath.
Eventually, this tearing of the veil may be revealed as the reason why the Supreme Court is presently upending its own institutional foundations. The sacrilege currently spewing out of the Court may simply be its attempt to get back to basics—the “original” plan according to them. My writing flows comfortably through the shocking mainstream legal discourse of 2026 and beyond, as it pierces the black swans of America, potentially to destroy them, but for constructive purposes.
To be fair, unless an overriding emergency reason demands otherwise, my writing will always proverbially eviscerate itself potentially destroying its nature as a black swan. I believe that by doing so I may reveal a greater potential in myself by feeding the public discourse, instead of serving a handful of elite clients with what would be “secret” knowledge artificially farmed for pay. I hope to be a source of public revelation about would-be black swans so that the public can have a say in legal movements that have largely, until today, taken place behind the scenes.
Public discourse is welcome in this space, including respectful disagreement and civilized argument. Any content placed here will be intended to enhance the public discourse occurring in other spaces. Some content may plug or refer to other works I have written or contributed to, but all works created or published by me are solely in the public interest. I have not profited from or been the recipient of research grants or any other institutional profit incentive program. I am not affiliated with any agenda-driven outfit, news organization, political party, or educational institution. I am completely independent and all my views are my own.
I own and run a virtual law firm SchroederLaw currently based out of Hollywood, California. I anticipate that the occurrence of disclosure of client interest will be rare. However, if for any reason I comment about a SchroederLaw client’s matter, or a matter that a client has an interest in, I will disclose the fact of the interest in the content. I do not publicly comment on client matters or matters related to my clients’ interests without informed written consent, and only when it is in the interest of my clients to do so.
Yours Respectfully,
Joshua J. Schroeder, Esq.
[1] Eve Babitz, Black Swans : Stories 195 (1993).
[2] Id.
[3] Id. at 50–51.