Like so many others, we were shocked and disappointed by the “leak” of a draft opinion of the United States Supreme Court on the abortion case. The leak of any opinion is more than a breach of trust. In a less prominent matter, a leak can move markets, affect related transactions, or upset settlement discussions at a delicate state. The leak of an early draft poses the additional specter of affecting negotiations among members of the court as they move toward a final result and refine the nuances of the court’s rationale. Preliminary votes on opinions have been known to change after drafts of tentative majority and dissenting opinions are circulated by various authors. Independent of what the leak will mean in terms of how the Supreme Court works going forward, it most unfortunately does make it appear—at least to some—that the Supreme Court has become a political entity.

We will not speculate at this point about who caused the “leak” or why. As with too much else in Washington, that debate has immediately become a highly partisan venting of preconceived ideas.