Questionable Judgement
This week, I saw a judge. Now, before you wonder what I (little miss lawful-stupid) could have possibly done to "deserve" it, please know this was a planned interview presentation, and not in a court setting.
Which is very likely a good thing, because this was Justice Kagan, who (in case you didn't know) is on the Supreme Court of the United States. I was in the audience less than 20 feet from her at the time. If I were more fangirly over that sort of thing, I'm sure I would have been starstruck.
How'd I manage to get in on this? The short answer is I work in Washington DC for the biggest employer in the area. This is not a secret, but it's not something I blatantly advertise either. Besides, there's no glamour in looking at spreadsheets and generating financial reports all day, but the opportunities I get because of it are occasionally really really cool.
My impression of her is she's a really neat person, who's had an extraordinary amount of good fortune with regards to her career history. Seriously, what a resumé! Not sure it's a path I'd want for me, but if I were going to go that route... I'd be hard-pressed to think of a path I'd enjoy more.
She mostly talked about what her life was like growing up in New York City (which I'm ashamed to admit I didn't know prior to the interview) and how she got from Manhattan to the highest bench in the country, despite never having been a judge before. She did clerk for the Supreme Court early on in her career, and she was arguing cases before the Court (being Solicitor General will do that, after all) not too long before joining it herself.
She's also got a decent sense of humor about the path her career ended up taking. She joked that the hardest career decision she had to make was when she had to choose between remaining the Dean of Harvard Law or going back to Washington to become SG... If only all decisions people have to make could be between such awesomely cool options, you know? ;-)
The whole interview lasted a bit more than an hour, but it never dragged. I think it was recorded for internet-playback (though I'm not sure if that's publicly available) but it's totally different to have actually BEEN there, and I'm glad I went. I didn't get a chance to interact with her directly, but I wasn't expecting to, and I'm not sure what I would have said if I got the chance anyway.
Going to an interview like that is certainly something I'd recommend to anyone who gets the chance. I don't know that I learned anything life-changing, but it was really neat to have done. Since I keep saying that whenever people ask me what I thought of it, I guess that's probably true: It was neat. :-)
tl;dr: It was a schduled interview/presentation that I got to go to because of my job.
This entry was originally posted at http://something-for-thursday.dreamwidth.org/5794.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Which is very likely a good thing, because this was Justice Kagan, who (in case you didn't know) is on the Supreme Court of the United States. I was in the audience less than 20 feet from her at the time. If I were more fangirly over that sort of thing, I'm sure I would have been starstruck.
How'd I manage to get in on this? The short answer is I work in Washington DC for the biggest employer in the area. This is not a secret, but it's not something I blatantly advertise either. Besides, there's no glamour in looking at spreadsheets and generating financial reports all day, but the opportunities I get because of it are occasionally really really cool.
My impression of her is she's a really neat person, who's had an extraordinary amount of good fortune with regards to her career history. Seriously, what a resumé! Not sure it's a path I'd want for me, but if I were going to go that route... I'd be hard-pressed to think of a path I'd enjoy more.
She mostly talked about what her life was like growing up in New York City (which I'm ashamed to admit I didn't know prior to the interview) and how she got from Manhattan to the highest bench in the country, despite never having been a judge before. She did clerk for the Supreme Court early on in her career, and she was arguing cases before the Court (being Solicitor General will do that, after all) not too long before joining it herself.
She's also got a decent sense of humor about the path her career ended up taking. She joked that the hardest career decision she had to make was when she had to choose between remaining the Dean of Harvard Law or going back to Washington to become SG... If only all decisions people have to make could be between such awesomely cool options, you know? ;-)
The whole interview lasted a bit more than an hour, but it never dragged. I think it was recorded for internet-playback (though I'm not sure if that's publicly available) but it's totally different to have actually BEEN there, and I'm glad I went. I didn't get a chance to interact with her directly, but I wasn't expecting to, and I'm not sure what I would have said if I got the chance anyway.
Going to an interview like that is certainly something I'd recommend to anyone who gets the chance. I don't know that I learned anything life-changing, but it was really neat to have done. Since I keep saying that whenever people ask me what I thought of it, I guess that's probably true: It was neat. :-)
tl;dr: It was a schduled interview/presentation that I got to go to because of my job.
This entry was originally posted at http://something-for-thursday.dreamwidth.org/5794.html. Please comment there using OpenID.