Courts are products of legal doctrine. A judge’s primary responsibility is to interpret and fairly apply the written law to the facts of each case. To this end, everyone knows judges are governed by a host of written statutes, as well as by precedent from previous cases decided by higher courts. Most people also know there are written rules of procedure and ethics judges must follow. But in the real world where there are nuanced and complex issues, the explicit statutes and cases may not provide all the answers. Written rules similarly cannot address every aspect of a judge’s behavior.