Ask an artist about the importance of “Twombly,” and he or she will likely think you are referring to Cy Twombly. Ask a lawyer about the importance of “Twombly,” and she will undoubtedly understand you to be asking about Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly. That the Supreme Court’s landmark pleading decision from the spring of 2007 bears the same name as the abstract painter is purely coincidental; but on consideration, the Twombly decision bears some similarity to Twombly’s work. Take any of a number of Twombly paintings from the late 1950s through the 1970s, and you will find indistinct forms that can be interpreted in numerous ways and erasures that are as significant as the marks scribbled atop them. Twombly’s paintings have been characterized as palimpsests—images in which the most recent marks do not fully obscure the earlier patterns. Likewise, one of Twombly’s key features is an erasure: Twombly “retire[s]” the Court’s statement a half-century earlier in Conley v. Gibson “that a complaint should not be dismissed for failure to state a claim unless it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim which would entitle him to relief.” The indeterminate new marks made by Twombly caused urgent debate: how should courts interpret—and how broadly should they apply—the Twombly Court’s conclusion that the plaintiffs’ antitrust complaint must be dismissed because their claim of conspiracy was not “plausible”? Just under two years later, the Court answered the question of scope: it made clear in Ashcroft v. Iqbal that Twombly’s new approach to pleading applies to all cases in federal court—not merely to complex antitrust class actions.

To interpret Twombly and Iqbal, we must view those decisions in the light of the procedural law that forms their background. The three articles in this collection do so in distinct but complementary ways. And in so doing, they examine not only pleading standards but other interlocking aspects of contemporary civil procedure. Professor Edward Hartnett’s close analysis of Twombly and Iqbal focuses our attention on underlying historical assumptions concerning the plausibility of inferences. Through this analysis, he suggests to advocates the importance of educating judges concerning such questions of plausibility in the context of the particular case. Professor Hartnett also examines the connection between motions to dismiss and discovery, and he finds that, even post-Iqbal, the district judge enjoys discretion to permit targeted discovery—pending the disposition of a motion to dismiss—in ways that may promote the survival of claims that might otherwise be dismissed. In considering Professor Elizabeth Schneider’s article, we step several paces further back, so that our field of vision takes in not only pleading but also summary judgment and the evidentiary principles that govern expert testimony. Professor Schneider argues forcefully that these doctrines combine to tilt the balance against plaintiffs in civil rights and employment actions, and she considers the implications of this insight for the role of federal judges in these important categories of litigation. Professor Scott Dodson broadens our field of inquiry further still, by suggesting that we evaluate the effects of Twombly and Iqbal in the light of pleading standards not only in the United States but also abroad. In combination, these articles have much to tell us, not just about Twombly and Iqbal, but about developments in U.S. federal civil procedure and the consequences of those developments for the enforcement of substantive rights.