Court Gazing
Updated May 13, 2026
Burt Hanson spent decades inside Minnesota courtrooms. Court Gazing is what he saw.
About this section
The "Court Gazing" essays document Burton Randall Hanson's observations from the working courtrooms of the Minnesota Supreme Court system, the Hennepin County District Court, and the various criminal and civil divisions where he spent his career as a Deputy Commissioner. The essays are short by Burt's standards (often under 1,500 words) and focus on the everyday theater of the trial process: the rituals, the silences, the small mercies, the boredom that Burt argued was actually the architecture of justice.
Featured essays
- BurtLaw's Court Gazing: the founding essay of the section
- Notes from a Long Afternoon in Civil Court: eighteen motions before noon
- On Robes, Rituals, and the Authority of Courts: why judges wear black