don't these jerks get interns to do most of the hard work?
The latest issue of REASON has an interview with a guy who wrote a book about senile justices who let their law clerks (not interns) do all their work. He saved his worst vitriol for Blackmun.
The only two sitting justices who write their own opinions are Scalia and Stevens (and that's why Stevens' opinions are always so inferior).
It's not a bad thing to have law clerks do a lot of the work. The 36 who get those jobs are the cream of the crop. We're not talking about people who went to Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc. - we're talking about people who finished first in their class at those schools, have already published law review articles, etc.
As long as the justice maintains control over the process of decisionmaking. O'Connor has shown no signs that she is letting her clerks make the decisions for her.
But because O'Connor is one of the more inconsistent justices (also known as "moderate"), her opinions are also a bit nonsensical, and her law clerks have to get REALLY creative to figure out a way to justify some of her decisions.
That's why I was pleasantly surprised by the strength of her opinion. I would have expected it from Scalia or Thomas on the conservative side or from Souter on the moderate side or from Breyer on the liberal side, but not from O'Connor.
The latest issue of REASON has an interview with a guy who wrote a book about senile justices who let their law clerks (not interns) do all their work. He saved his worst vitriol for Blackmun.
The only two sitting justices who write their own opinions are Scalia and Stevens (and that's why Stevens' opinions are always so inferior).
It's not a bad thing to have law clerks do a lot of the work. The 36 who get those jobs are the cream of the crop. We're not talking about people who went to Stanford, Harvard, Yale, etc. - we're talking about people who finished first in their class at those schools, have already published law review articles, etc.
As long as the justice maintains control over the process of decisionmaking. O'Connor has shown no signs that she is letting her clerks make the decisions for her.
But because O'Connor is one of the more inconsistent justices (also known as "moderate"), her opinions are also a bit nonsensical, and her law clerks have to get REALLY creative to figure out a way to justify some of her decisions.
That's why I was pleasantly surprised by the strength of her opinion. I would have expected it from Scalia or Thomas on the conservative side or from Souter on the moderate side or from Breyer on the liberal side, but not from O'Connor.
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