If Kesha ultimately loses her case against Dr. Luke, the producer she has accused of drugging, raping, and abusing her, it won't be for the lack of qualified attorneys. Since suing Dr. Luke in October 2014, the singer has been represented by Mark Geragos, who previously defended Chris Brown and Michael Jackson—and yes, it was for what you think. In recent days, Kesha’s legal team has also brought on Daniel Petrocelli, who bested O.J. Simpson in a wrongful death civil case.

So why, then, did she just suffer a serious courtroom defeat?

On Wednesday, New York Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich rejected nearly all of the claims Kesha's lawyers brought before her. Understandably, the ruling has spurred intense outcry. Still, as the New York Times neatly phrased it, the specific allegations Kornreich threw out this week were "infliction of emotional distress, gender-based hate crimes, and employment discrimination." And a review of the judge's decision, along with an earlier courtroom transcript, raises questions about what, exactly, Kesha's high-profile legal team was trying to do here. (Pitchfork reached out to Geragos and Petrocelli and, as of press time, has not heard back.) If the goal was to prevail in court, this round was clearly a bust. In the court of public opinion, though, Kesha is winning.

Kesha's lawsuit includes some horrifically detailed assertions about Dr. Luke, but when it comes to the actual legal claims, the judge found the arguments deeply lacking in particulars. Kornreich wrote that while Kesha claimed she was “sexually, physically and verbally abused by Gottwald for a decade, she describes only two specific instances." The judge raised a similar point at a hearing in February. "You have to be specific," Kornreich said, according to the transcript. "And you have to be specific as to what happened and when it happened, at the very least. And it's not here." Tina Glandian, an attorney in Geragos' law firm, replied that Kesha's team could amend their claims to add what the judge wanted, but the judge said that "this is the second amendment and still doesn't give any facts." Why, nearly a year and a half after suing Dr. Luke, couldn't Kesha's lawyers offer the judge the specifics she wanted?

Again and again, Kornreich held that the allegations against Luke fell short in ways top-flight attorneys like Kesha's might have foreseen. On emotional distress, the judge ruled that claims were either too old under the one-year statute of limitations for this type of allegation, or else failed even "to state a claim" that could meet the "strict standard" required. On the hate crime allegations, Kornreich sparked an uproar by writing, "Every rape is not a gender-motivated hate crime." It's an appalling statement to read, especially imagining the pain those words could cause to a victim reading them. But the statute quoted by the judge explicitly required Kesha's lawyers to claim Dr. Luke's alleged actions were driven by a gender bias. According to the decision, Kesha's attorneys didn't make that claim. If that's right, then why didn't they?

A word the judge has used a lot in this case is "conclusory." It means when you state a conclusion without offering any supporting evidence—in this case, for instance, asserting that Dr. Luke breached some standard for legal liability, but not saying when or how. According to Kornreich, Kesha's lawsuit alleged "in conclusory fashion" that Dr. Luke was continuing to abuse the singer, "but in keeping with" Kesha's claims, "she supplies no dates or specifics." Kornreich wrote that if Dr. Luke "abused Kesha at any time," Kesha should be able "to allege what occurred, or when and who she told. Similarly, she would know which Sony executives witnessed any abuse, the nature of the abuse, and when it occurred. She failed to make the necessary allegations."