Stories Without Endings

Most people won't resort to litigation unless they're in a truly intractable conflict, so most court cases have compelling stories behind them. Unfortunately, those cases are included in legal textbooks not to tell the stories, but to illustrate some distinct point of law that came up during the litigation. As a result, one often starts reading a case, gets to know the characters and learns about their tragic circumstances, only to reach the end of the case and find that the moral of the story is something like, "the plaintiff may recover damages if a jury determines that the parties intended their contract to extend the liability imposed by statute." The end. There's almost never a footnote to tell you who won in the end, no closure, no catharsis. When I get into practice, I hope I'll at least know whether my clients win or lose.