It turns out that Walter Dellinger’s argument that Roberts’s situation is different from that of a career lawyer like Estrada completely collapses in practice. Specifically, I am reliably informed that it has long been a common practice for deputies in the Solicitor General’s office to note their agreement or disagreement with a career lawyer’s recommendation by handwriting notations on the career lawyer’s memorandum. In other words, disclosure of Roberts’s work product would necessarily entail disclosure of lots and lots of memos by career lawyers, and would therefore have the severe chilling effect that Dellinger and other past heads of the SG’s office decried in their 2002 letter.