Judge Learned Hand . . . What a name

I always find it extremely difficult to take my mind off of work. So while thinking about work, I started thinking about Judge Learned Hand. Learned Hand was a judge on one of the federal circuit Courts of Appeal, and yes, his first named was Learned. I don't think his writing or legal reasoning were greatly superior to other federal judges who wrote appellate opinions, but for some reason other judges, in writing their appellate or district level opinions, very often have cited to Judge Hand's opinions to give support to their own findings. (It is a very common practice for appellate judges to cite other cases, and then to either show how the the other cases support their current findings, or how the current case is significantly different from the one being cited. It is much less common, however, to cite the name of the authoring judge unless it is one of the US Supreme Court Justices). This then begs the question as to why so many other judges have cited Judge Hand's opinions and also stated the author's name. I think the silly, obvious answer is the correct answer; they like to say his name. Judges like to say, "according the the learned Judge Learned Hand in XYZ Case..." I guess this shows that judges are people too. 

Photo: Judge Learned Hand