Deborah Gelin: Supreme Court Pioneer

Monday, October 2, 1972 was a momentous day at the United States Supreme Court. At approximately 10:00 a.m., the Justices processed into the com1room to start October Term 1972. For the first time in the Court\u27s history, a young woman took a seat on the raised rostrum. She was not Sandra Day O\u27Connor, who would become the first female Justice approximately nine years later. Her name was Deborah Gelin, and she was a fourteen-year-old high school student from Rockville, Maryland. Hired by the Court in September of 1972, Gelin was the first young woman to serve as a Supreme Court page. The goal of this short essay is to tell Gelin\u27s story

William Thaddeus Coleman, Jr.: Breaking the Color Barrier at the U.S. Supreme Court

The purpose of this essay is twofold: It will endeavor to succinctly summarize the important events of Coleman’s life and professional career, while making the argument that these achievements were as groundbreaking in the legal community as Robinson’s were to baseball. Admittedly, looking to our national pastime is hardly an original literary maneuver; The myriad similarities and links between baseball and the law have offered rich material for many legal writers.2 Moreover, this article does not wish to diminish Coleman’s accomplishments by comparing them to a mere “game.” By drawing upon the sixtieth anniversary of Robinson’s debut, my hope is to give Coleman his due and place his laudable achievements in the proper perspective. Not only did the two men do much to dispel the pernicious stereotype that they belonged to a race that was doomed to second-class citizenship, but their efforts to integrate their respective professions and to use their talents to effect change reverberated throughout society

Thoughts on Law Clerk Diversity and Influence

It is my great good fortune to have been asked to comment on the remarkable Article Law Clerk Selection and Diversity: Insights from Fifty Sitting Judges of the Federal Courts of Appeals by Judge Jeremy D. Fogel, Professor Mary S. Hoopes, and Justice Goodwin Liu. Drawing on a rich vein of data gathered pursuant to a carefully crafted research design and extensive interviews, the authors provide the most detailed account to date regarding the selection criteria used by federal appeals court judges to select their law clerks. The authors pay special attention to the role that diversity plays in picking law clerks, an important element that heretofore has not been fully explored. Before sharing my thoughts about the Article, I want to offer a short history lesson on the lack of diversity among law clerks in the federal and state courts. The employment barriers facing women, ethnic minorities, and Jewish law clerks throughout the twentieth century help place in context the current interest judges have in hiring candidates from diverse backgrounds; I believe that this interest includes an appreciation of the value of diversity, a sincere desire to rectify discriminatory hiring practices from earlier generations of judges, and a concern that not expanding clerkship selection criteria will draw public scrutiny. I will then turn my attention to Fogel, Hoopes, and Liu’s findings and offer some thoughts about future research questions

Gertrude Jenkins, Unplugged

Gertrude Jenkins worked for U.S. Chief Justice Harlan Fiske Stone until his death in 1946. Adept at multi-tasking, she also ran a boarding house to make more money. A position as a floating secretary was created for Jenkins at the Court, and she worked in other chambers as well as the Court library until October 1949, when she accepted a position in Justice Frankfurter’s chambers. Jenkins retired in August 1953. Gertrude Jenkins’s letters neither shed light on the grand constitutional issues of her day nor provide insights into the justices’ jurisprudential views. They will not cause historians to radically reevaluate the individuals who sat on the Court in the early-to-mid twentieth century. The letters do, however, offer some tantalizing tidbits on the all-too-human men and women who have been associated with our country’s highest court and are a refreshing tonic to the hagiography that often surrounds famous historical figures

A Secretary\u27s Absence for a Law School Examination

The May 5, 1893 letter from Justice Horace Gray to Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller touches upon several different strands of Supreme Court history. To place the letter in context, we need to briefly discuss the creation of the law clerk position as well as the different functions of this first generation of law clerks. And we need to talk about the untimely death of a young Harvard Law School graduate named Moses Day Kimball

Arthur A. Thomas: A Hero of a Valet

During his time on the Supreme Court, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was the beneficiary of adulation from his legal secretaries (today we refer to them as law clerks) and young legal scholars, like Felix Frankfurter and Harold Laski. While the Justice basked in the warm glow of their hero worship, he was quick to point out to them that “no man is a hero to his valet.” The phrase was not original to Holmes, although the expression sounds like it sprang from his clever mind. The underlying meaning is simple—the servant tending daily to his employer sees flaws and human failings. Assuming that Holmes was correct, how would he have answered the related question of whether a valet can be a hero to his employer? There were instances when Holmes was greatly moved by the heroism of soldiers under his command and impressed by the hard work of his law clerks. But in this essay we will examine the actions of a historically obscure man who took it upon himself to preserve Holmes’ memory. His name was Arthur A. Thomas, a one-time messenger to Holmes who publicly shared his affection for his late employer

Birth of an Institution: Horace Gray and the Lost Law Clerks

In a vault hidden away in a downtown Boston bank rests a large silver loving cup. The cup was presented to Associate Justice Horace Gray on March 22, 1902 by his law clerks, and engraved on its tarnished surface are the names of the nineteen Harvard Law School graduates who served as Justice Gray’s law clerks. While the details surrounding the presentation of the cup have been lost to history, the gift was likely prompted by the failing health of Justice Gray and his future departure from the Supreme Court. The loving cup is still held by the Gray family, passing to the heirs of Professor John Chipman Gray, the famous Harvard Law School professor and half-brother of Horace Gray, upon the death of the childless Horace Gray

Chief Justice Melville Weston Fuller and the Great Mustache Debate of 1888

Over the long history of the Supreme Court, nominees to the highest court in the land have been opposed for a variety of reasons. Often opponents are concerned about the nominee’s political ideology or competency. Occasionally, allegations are raised about political cronyism. And candidates have come under fire for their religion. But nominee Melville Weston Fuller’s selection launched a national debate that went to the very heart of what makes one qualified to sit on the Supreme Court: whether a judge should have a mustache. On March 23, 1888, Morrison R. Waite died of pneumonia after sitting for fourteen years in the Supreme Court’s center chair. Approximately one month later, President Grover Cleveland nominated Fuller to be the next Chief Justice. A prominent and highly successful Chicago attorney, Fuller was a life-long Democrat who had sported a mustache at least since 1867. Fuller had previously declined appointments to be on the United States Civil Service Commission and to be solicitor general. This time, however, Fuller answered the call to duty

From Natchitoches to Nuremberg: The Life of Legal Pioneer Lyria Dickason

Lyria was one of a small handful of women who graduated from a Louisiana law school in the 1930’s. Despite the employment barriers facing female attorneys, she went on to become one of the first female law clerks in both the federal and state judiciary. To date, Lyria’s story has not been told. I have recently discovered, however, that Lyria’s children and grandchildren preserved her letters to her family. They are a treasure trove of information about a woman whose career took her from rural Louisiana to Louisiana’s highest court as well as the post-war ruins of Nazi Germany. The letters provide a rare glimpse into long-past moments in history, including the career of a woman who worked to establish herself in the male-dominated legal profession. And the correspondence introduces us to a woman whose humor, sense of adventure, and love of family are evident on every page

Isaiah and His Young Disciples: Justice Brandeis and His Law Clerks

It cannot be said that Louis Dembitz Brandeis has suffered from a lack of scholarly attention. Brandeis is considered to be one of the most influential Justices in the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, and scores of books and law-review articles have been written about Brandeis the lawyer, the political insider, the Zionist, and the Justice. A case can be made, however, that history has not fully recognized the important and lasting contribution that Brandeis made to the development of the institutional rules and norms surrounding the Supreme Court law clerk, an oversight that this essay seeks to rectify