The country is divided along partisan and ideological lines and, as is widely the perception, so is the U.S. Supreme Court. But the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, which left the high court at eight members for more than a year, forced justices to engage more deeply with one another on areas of disagreement, Justice Elena Kagan said at an appearance at the UW Memorial Union on Friday afternoon.
“We all made a serious effort to find common ground even where we thought we couldn’t,” Kagan said. Now that the court has returned to full force, with the recently installed Justice Neil Gorsuch, Kagan said she hopes that all justices “will remember not to stop the conversation too soon.”
UW Law School Dean Margaret Raymond questioned Kagan for an hour. The two, who have known each other for decades, grew up near each other in New York and were classmates at Hunter College High School in Manhattan. So when Raymond asked Kagan to talk about early influences, the dean ended up offering her own succinct assessment of Kagan’s mother: “formidable.”
That is a “good word for my mother,” Kagan agreed.
Kagan said her mother was demanding with high standards. “She had a strong belief that you do things well or badly … that you are committed or not.” Her influence is ongoing, added Kagan. “My mother’s voice is ringing in my head all the time.”
Kagan said she went to law school for all the wrong reasons, including just to keep her “options open.” But, she ended up loving law school and the law. She found the work interesting and saw how lawyers could better people’s lives. She said she feels “lucky” that she found her niche.
After graduating from Harvard Law School, Kagan went on to clerk for a U.S. Court of Appeals judge for the D.C. circuit and for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in 1987. When Kagan became a justice herself, some 25 years later, she was surprised to find many familiar faces among the staff at the high court and that processes at the court had changed little. It’s not like the world hasn’t undergone a “communications revolution” in the last 25 years, Kagan joked.
The justice encouraged law students and young lawyers to seek out mentors. “Put yourself in a position where people can give you great advice,” she said. “Making yourself a little vulnerable is the best thing you can do.”
She also had advice for lawyers who argue before the Supreme Court, a process she called “pretty much a nightmare.”
“Often the justices aren’t really asking questions,” she said. “They are making points with the other justices. “
She said lawyers “need the fortitude to engage” on the weak points of their argument and to “treat the whole thing as a conversation.” There is “no oration at the court.”
