204. The centrality of being earnest
I recently traveled to Washington to attend a conference on Supreme Court practice put on by the National Association of Aspiring Governors (a joke, I'm sure, only a few seconds younger than the oldest state attorney general's office). As explained on the NAAG website, the conference featured "[p]anels of experienced Supreme Court practitioners [who] addressed oral argument, written advocacy (including petitions for writs of certiorari and oppositions thereto, merits briefs, and amicus briefs) and more."
One of the extremely distinguished panels even included Tom SCOTUSblog himself. Roger Daltry might have been talking about our conference when he sang, "The crowd went crazy when Tommy hit the stage". Security was able to restore some semblance of order after just a few minutes, though I have to say the screaming sometimes made it hard to concentrate on what was being said.
Other stars of the Supreme Court bar who shared stories and advice with us included Donald Ayer, Virginia Seitz, Carter Phillips, Michael J. Wahoske, Beth Brinkmann, and a whole bunch of other ex-Supreme Court clerks now billing the big bucks at various mega-firms. All of them very nice, well-spoken, funny, informative, somewhat clannish, and respectful.
Deeply respectful. They seemed as much in awe of the Supreme Court and its godlike members today as they must have been on their first day of new clerk orientation. In the two days of the conference I didn't hear a single disparaging word, or even a cynical joke, about the justices or their institution. The tone was more than just respect for power; it was closer to hero-worship. It's hard to imagine a similar group of lawyers who represent clients in high-stakes matters before, say, the United States Senate having quite the same reverential attitude, though an argument could be made that the Senate is among the world's top-1o deliberative bodies.
I could think of three explanations for the gee-whizness of it all. The first and most heart-warming is that the Supreme Court is the only institution of government that has earned the unadulterated respect of everyone who has benefited from its infinite resources of disinterested sagacity, which is to say everyone. (With a single exception. See post 196.) In this age of weary cynicism, isn't it refreshing to know that one institution of government remains a ________ [insert hackneyed image here. Example: beacon in the darkness.].
A second and somewhat less inspiring explanation is that the importance of Supreme Court practitioners depends wholly on the importance of the institution they serve (or perhaps service). Members of the in-group talk up the Court as a way of talking up themselves. Emphasizing all that is unique and demanding about litigating in the Supreme Court is a form of boasting.
Both those explanations might have an element of truth, but I think a third goes further than either, and that looks at the sorts of people who become Supreme Court specialists. As mentioned, most of them are former Supreme Court clerks, and you don't win a position as a Supreme Court clerk with an attitude.
The clerks are all people who graduated near the top of the class at one of the elite law schools. (Tony Mauro published some famous articles a few years back demonstrating that the justices think along the same lines as U.S. News and World Report, hiring most of their clerks from the magazine's top 10 schools.) That tells you right away that all the clerks are smart, hard-working and focused.
They're not people who waste time questioning why they're doing what they're doing. In law school, they weren't the type of people inclined to fritter away precious study hours attending concerts, visiting galleries or museums, engaging in meaningful relationships with fellow human beings, reading for pleasure, or any of the other frivolous things that so often distract students from their work.
Furthermore, they're people who have learned the knack of winning the approval of powerful people, and have then applied themselves to exercising that knack systematically. References from professors got them clerkships with tied-in judges of the federal courts of appeals, and recommendations from those strategically-placed judges led to the Supreme Court clerkships, and the approbation of the justice will cast a golden glow over the entire future legal career of the 27-year-old ex-clerk.
Now, I've worked with two ex-clerks, both of whom have been fabulously successful, and both of whom I greatly admire. Both are far more disciplined than myself, exhibiting a capacity for work far surpassing my own.
I can illustrate my point by describing my law school experience. I was glad to get high grades in the law classes I enjoyed, which were taught by professors I respected, but didn't much mind low grades in boring classes taught by the bad teachers. People would laugh when I'd say, "I'm not going to let classes get in the way of my education," but I wasn't really joking. I'm confident that thought never occurred to my ex-clerk friends. Or if it did, they successfully suppressed it.
The club of ex-clerks that make up the Supreme Court bar is composed of people who bought into the system completely during law school, and in the critical first two years after graduation. In some ways it's actually rather touching to discover that the same mode of unquestioning acceptance that got them the clerkships has helped them to the very pinnacle of professional success. The formula works. All you have to do is buy into it, and then keep buying, and never look up.
Sunday, December 10, 2006 at 12:27AM in Judicial bureaucrats
Reader Comments (2)