The proliferation of discursive footnotes in law review articles for as long as we can remember has been joined by a similar proliferation in briefs and judicial opinions over the past generation. The victim is the reader, whose eyes must go back and forth from text to footnote.1

So why not use footnotes for what they were traditionally used for: to give a citation for the assertion in the text? Ironically, for case citations, this is the one thing that has long stayed in the text for both lawyers and judges.