Supreme Court justices don’t communicate with each other via email. Elena Kagan explains why:

[Y]ou have to remember that the Court is an institution where…we’re not horse trading. We’re not bargaining. We’re reasoning. And we’re trying to persuade people. And often the best way to do that is by putting things down on paper in a kind of careful and deliberate way and saying this is what I think and, and giving people an opportunity to read a memo and to think about it and to reflect on it.

This is great. Yes, at first glance the idea that Supreme Court justices don’t email each other– at least about cases; I’m sure Kagan and Scalia IM about their Netflix queues and whether to get Italian or try that new Chinese place– sounds like serious “you kids get off my lawn” conservatism. But instead she’s making a case that the affordances of print media better support the work that’s central to judicial deliberation: careful thinking and communication. Writing a memo gives you more time to develop and think more seriously about your argument, and it probably is also easier to read and annotate intensively.