U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch's majority opinion May 21 in Epic Systems v. Lewis was his most important decision since joining the bench in April 2017, boosting arbitration and weakening class actions in resolving disputes for millions of workers.

But what did the opinion tell us about his writing style?

Five months ago, the Twitter hashtag #gorsuchstyle, invented by “First Mondays” podcaster and Washington University at St. Louis professor Dan Epps, rode the wave of criticism of Gorsuch's first writings as a justice.

Once praised as a superior writer, Gorsuch was suddenly being mocked for excessive explanations and preachy put-downs, such as this snippet from his first dissent: “If a statute needs repair, there's a constitutionally prescribed way to do it. It's called legislation.”

And then there were the rambling references, as in his January dissent in Artis v. District of Columbia that referred to British journalist G.K. Chesterton: “Chesterton reminds us not to clear away a fence just because we cannot see its point. Even if a fence doesn't seem to have a reason, sometimes all that means is we need to look more carefully for the reason it was built in the first place.” The fence metaphor rears its head again, at length, at the end of the dissent.

“Neil Gorsuch Is a Terrible Writer,” Slate magazine writer Mark Joseph Stern proclaimed in January.

Since then, critics have been slowly amending their views. And the Epic decision seems to have fewer rough edges of the kind that ruffled feathers in the past.

During an April podcast, Epps said, “I'm going to walk that back officially. Gorsuch is a good writer.” Stern, too, tweeted in April that “I do think the justice's writing has markedly improved over the last few months.”

But don't get any ideas that Gorsuch has changed his writing style to please the pundits, said former Gorsuch law clerk Jamil Jaffer, founder of the National Security Institute at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University.

“He is not paying attention to anyone's criticism of his writing,” Jaffer said in an interview. “Justice Gorsuch just isn't one for the D.C. cocktail circuit nor the online blog or podcast circuit, so I can guarantee you there won't be anything approaching a Greenhouse or Totenberg effect or any other pundit who thinks they might have one.”

Jaffer was referring to influential Supreme Court correspondents Linda Greenhouse and Nina Totenberg. Senior D.C. Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman in 1992 borrowed the phrase “Greenhouse effect” to suggest that Supreme Court justices try to curry favor with Greenhouse, then at the New York Times, in their votes and writings.

Whatever the motivation or lack thereof, Gorsuch's Epic opinion seems somewhat different in tone. There is less over-explaining of obvious points, fewer condescending remarks, and more straightforward assertions. “His Epic opinion was clearer and less wordy than some of his past ones,” said liberal Think Progress commentator Ian Millhiser, a critic of Gorsuch. “Also, there weren't gratuitous quotes from obscure conservative philosophers. So good on him for that.”

But there are still some clumsy sentences, such as “Respect for Congress as drafter counsels against too easily finding irreconcilable conflicts in its work.”

And legal writing expert Ross Guberman pointed to a segment of Gorsuch's opinion that painted what he called a “raucous scene” of employees casting about, statutes stepping on each other, interpretations playing pool, and judicial eyebrows rising:

Based on that excerpt and others Guberman thinks the #gorsuchstyle meme may have a new, less critical meaning: namely that “Only Justice Gorsuch could (or would) have written a passage like this.”

His Exhibit A is this sentence from Epic: “Assuming (but not granting) the employees could satisfactorily answer all those questions, the saving clause still can't save their cause.”

Guberman said, “There's a lot of Gorsuch in there. I can't think of any justice, not even Kagan, who would write 'the saving clause still can't save their cause.' But is that turn of phrase witty and clever? Or is it cutesy and even insulting?”

In another sentence, Gorsuch wrote that a certain argument “faces a stout uphill climb.” The word “steep” might have been clearer than “stout,” but the unusual word choice makes the sentence more interesting—or is it just showy and different for the sake of being different?

Given these examples, Guberman does not think the Epic decision reflects much change in Gorsuch's writing style. “Justice Thomas has been said to tell his clerks 'I ain't evolving' on the doctrinal front, and it seems like Justice Gorsuch's Epic opinion sends a tacit 'I ain't evolving' message on the writing front.”

Read more: