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Nihal Sahu

I'm a Research Fellow at Vidhi. Most of the time, I'm working on building the rule of law in India by producing research, advising government departments, and helping draft legislation. I think a lot about legal realism, software, and economics.

Selected Writing

Liberalism is gentleness

short • people have multidimensional preference sets • we love the ability to make choices

Microlawsuits

the lower limit on dispute resolution time • ai judges • slowness as legitimacy • dworkin's dream

Against searching for saints

in defense of paying people to do things • incentives solve principal-agent problems • motivated agents exist but are unevenly distributed and hard to identify

Authority

the development of modern states • statecraft has a technology tree • parliamentary democracy • separation of powers • rule of law

Against lawyer brain

escaping formalism for substance • why legal training teaches you to avoid the real world • learning to form opinions under uncertainty • choosing outcomes over process • strong beliefs, loosely held

I have a favourite band

literary earworms • finding identity • developing taste • rainbow kitten surprise • self-loathing

Your writing is not good enough

fear and writing • professional compromises • the erosion of caring • honest feedback • fighting mediocrity

Religious freedom, reform, and secularism

Article 25 and the reform clause • protecting religious freedom while reforming practices • state control of Hindu temples • cognitive dissonance in Indian secularism • dynamic equilibrium between competing visions

Tipping the odds

economists and lawyers • the limits of interpretation • what is Law™

The second best is a formal order

notes on the death of Elizabeth II • legal realism • rule of law in India • the English roots of constitutional traditions

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