I am a practicing attorney and a graduate student of history. I research and write about legal history, Mormon history, and philosophy, and I am most at home in the places where the three overlap. Much of what appears here grows out of my graduate work, an MA in history at California State University, Fullerton, where my formal focus is American legal history. But constitutionalism and political philosophy run through nearly everything I write. And my own faith has given me a lifelong interest in Mormon history and culture, drawing me again and again to the church’s long and often uneasy encounter with the American legal system, an encounter that opens onto enduring questions of church and state, conscience and law.
This Substack is where I crystallize my thinking. Writing forces an idea to hold its shape, and the quiet beauty of this medium is that a finished thought no longer has to sit in a drawer: it can be shared, tested, and refined in the company of readers. My hope is that anyone who wanders in finds something worth the visit.
I chose the name Of Policy and Reason because, on its surface, it describes what lives here: reflections on law and on philosophy. But the pairing carries a conviction. We must live in a society of law and order; I believe that without reservation. I believe just as firmly that law needs philosophy, because philosophy asks what the rules are for and whom they leave behind. It makes room for empathy, for equality, for the marginalized realities unfolding quietly all around us. History is most often told through the victories of great men. I take a particular interest in questioning that familiar narrative, and I feel a self-imposed moral responsibility to seek out the overlooked voices and unheard arguments that have helped make our country, and our shared humanity, great.
A final word of thanks. Visiting and reading take time and attention, and both are gifts. I am sincerely grateful for every minute of them, and I would like this page to be a conversation as much as a publication. If an essay here stirs a thought, a question, or a friendly disagreement, I would love to hear it. Write to me anytime at Bryan@OnPolicyAndReason.com.