University Place

A Conversation with Justice Sonia Sotomayor

[Chancellor Blank]

Good afternoon and welcome to the University of Wisconsin and to the 2016 Robert W. Kastenmeier lecture.

I’m Rebecca Blank. I’m the chancellor here at the University of Wisconsin, and I am delighted to see all of you here at today’s very special event.

I want to thank the Kastenmeier committee and co-chairs, Peter Carstensen and Anuj Desai, for organizing what is going to be a memorable conversation with the honorable Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

And, of course, thanks to the Justice for spending her day here in Madison.

The Kastenmeier lecture reflects our law school’s strong commitment to what we call the law in action approach to teaching. That assumes that a lawyer’s role is not just to know and apply the law, but to solve complex problems in a way that improves lives and strengthens communities.

This tradition is one important reason why our law school consistently attracts internationally and nationally renowned legal scholars.

Dean Margaret Raymond is one such scholar. Dean Raymond has a deep understanding of the unique role of a public institution in educating lawyers to serve an incredibly diverse mix of clients.

That understanding drives her commitment to helping build programs that introduce students from disadvantaged backgrounds to careers in the law. Programs, like the James E Jones Jr. Pre-Law Scholars Program that launched this summer, that gave freshmen and sophomores from traditionally underserved groups from around the nation and across the UW system a chance to see what law school is all about.

I want to thank Dean Raymond for her leadership, thank our moderators and our distinguished guests for what is going to be a great afternoon. Thank you all, and please join me in welcoming Dean Raymond.

[applause]

[Dean Raymond]
Good afternoon. Thank you, chancellor. It is my pleasure and privilege to welcome all of you to this year’s Kastenmeier lecture.

The lecture is supported by the fund established to honor Robert W Kastenmeier, an outstanding graduate of the University of Wisconsin Law School, who served with great distinction in the US Congress from 1958 until 1990.

During his tenure, Representative Kastenmeier made special contributions to many fields, including improvement of the judiciary, which makes our talk today particularly special. I understand that Dorothy Kastenmeier is here with us, so I want to make sure that we recognize and welcome Dorothy.

[applause]

Dorothy, thanks so much for being here. It’s great to have you back in Madison.

Um, in honor of Representative Kastenmeier, the planning committee that the chancellor mentioned organizes a speaker or event that reflects one of the congressman’s rich array of legislative interests. I want to make sure to join in thanking the committee and also our staff, who without whom a day like this would not have been possible. Ah

[applause]

This year’s Kastenmeier lecturer is Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Justice Sotomayor joined the US Supreme Court as an associate justice in 2009.
Before her appointment to the Court she attended Princeton University and Yale Law School, served as an assistant district attorney in the New York County District Attorney’s Office, litigated international commercial matters in New York City as first an associate and then a partner at the firm of Pavia & Harcourt, and served for six years as a judge on the US District Court for the southern district of New York, 11 years as a judge on the US Court of Appeals from the Second Circuit until her appointment to the Supreme Court in 2009.

She’s a born New Yorker, like me, and is the author of an extraordinarily beautiful memoir, “My Beloved World.” If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. We are delighted and privileged to have her here today as our Kastenmeier lecturer.

But our format today differs a bit from a traditional lecture. The presentation today will be a conversation between the Justice and two of her former law clerks, Lindsey Powell and Rob Yablon.

For those of our unfamiliar with the phenomenon of law clerks, law clerks are relatively recent law graduates who spend often a year working closely with a judge on the judge’s work.

Ah, ah, Lindsey Powell, ah, the first of our moderators, is now an appellate attorney at the Civil Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

And Rob Yablon is an assistant professor of law here at the Law School.

The relationship between Supreme Court justices and their law clerks is formed like metamorphic rock from a combination of time, pressure, and heat.

[laughter]

For a very intense year, those law clerks have the extraordinary opportunity at the very beginning of their careers to serve, support, and learn from justices at the pinnacle of theirs.

That intense experience forms remarkable and enduring bonds of appreciation, respect, commitment, and connection. And I imagine you’ll see some of that as Justice Sotomayor talks with her former clerks. Please join me in welcoming the Justice, Rob, and Lindsey.

[applause]

[Justice Sotomayor]
I am delighted to be in Madison. It’s a beautiful, beautiful campus. And I’ve had the privilege of meeting your chancellor and the dean of the Law School and the dean of the School of Education today. And I am both tremendously impressed and deeply touched by the commitment they have to this university and to its participants, both the faculty and students and administrators. You’re very fortunate students, the ones who are in this room.

I’m more fortunate because I’m getting to have a talk with two very favorite people of mine, Lindsey and Rob.

When I became a justice, I decided I needed Um, we’re entitled to four law clerks. And I decided since I knew very little about the inner-workings of the court, other than what I had read in books and sometimes you’re a little dubious about what you read, ah, the truth only comes out when you experience it, I thought maybe I should hire two law clerks with experience.

And so a friend reached out to a number of justices and said, “Do you have somebody to recommend, ah, in your current crop of law clerks who might want to stay on for another year?”

Lindsey worked for Justice John Paul Stevens, whom I grew to love. And Rob worked for another justice who’s been incredibly important to me in my life on the court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And without them, I don’t think I would have made it through the year.

[laughter]

And so I am both eternally grateful to them, but I’m more privileged that I know them. They’re very special human beings who care a lot about the profession and about others. And so I’m very, very proud of both of them and so thrilled that we’re doing this today. Thank you both for being here with me.

[Lindsey Powell]
Thank you.

[Rob Yablon]
Yeah, Justice, thank you so much for joining us in Madison. It’s wonderful to have you here.

Um, it was an incredible privilege for, ah, Lindsey and for me to be able to be your law clerks during your first year on the Supreme Court. And

[Justice Sotomayor]
I worked you harder than anybody else. Hard to believe.

[laughter]

[Robert Yablon]
You’ve described that time in your life as almost an out-of-body experience. You, you had just been through a grueling senate confirmation process, you’d been thrust into the public spotlight, you’d been uprooted from New York, and you were still acclimating to Washington, DC, ah, and you were starting this incredibly high pressure, high stakes job.

Many people may not remember this, but the very first case that you heard, ah, just a month after being sworn-in was a case called Citizens United.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
Clarence Thomas called me before I’d began reading the briefs in that case, just when I joined the court, and he said to me, “I feel so sorry for you.”

[laughter]

“It’s going to take you days to read all those things.” He was right.

[laughter]

[Robert Yablon]
So, you’re nowwe don’t like to think that it’s been this long, but you’re now about to start your seventh term on the court. And so you’ve been there for some huge cases, ah, some on the winning side, some not.

You have written a best-selling memoir. You have traveled every corner of the country it seems like. You’ve been on “Sesame Street.”

[laughter]

More, more than once.

[laughter]

[Robert Yablon]
So, do you

[Justice Sotomayor, interrupting]

Threw out a first pitch at Yankee Stadium.

[Robert Yablon]
That too. I mean, does this all still seem surreal, or have you has being a Supreme Court Justice become your normal life now?

[Justice Sotomayor]
Well, once I accepted that my old life had completely ended – you mentioned some of the things that had ended. My life in New York, which I loved. Um, my sense of privacy, and lack of notoriety had ended. And once I accepted that my new life would just be abnormal…

[laughter]

It’s become easier to accept.

But I come out and I see an audience of, how many people are here? 1500?

It always takes my breath away. And there are other moments constantly where I’m reminded that this is not a normal life.

Um, in particular, every year at the State of the Union, as I’m now in the front row most of the time, and it feels like and I can almost touch the President, I assure you I can’t.

[laughter]

You know, I’m that close. There’s no impediment. And I’m always marveled at the fact that I’m there.

Ah, I, shortly after he withdrew from the election, Governor Kasich was at, uh, Reagan Airport, and I was leaving on a trip, and as I got to the front of the airport, my security drivers told me that he was waiting to meet me.

You have to understand I had just watched him on TV almost every day

[laughter]

for a number of weeks, and the idea that he would be waiting for ME still seems strange. It FEELS strange. And I’m constantly reminded that in many ways, lots of ways, I’m really, really blessed.

But in some ways cursed. There is a burden with THIS job. It’s not the burden of notoriety; It is the burden of knowing that the work I’m doing affects so many people. And that’s something I never forget.

Ah, I often tell people, you know, I’m much, much more conscious today than I ever was when I was a judge on the lower courts of how deeply the decisions of the Supreme Court affect the nation. And if you agreed with the way I’ve voted, you’re very happy, right?

[laughter]

But I never forget that in every case someone wins and there’s an opposite, and that is that someone loses.

And that burden feels very heavy to me quite often. And so, yes, a blessing and a curse.

[Lindsey Powell]
So, different justices take different approaches in, um, how they engage with the public and respond to the demands on their time, and this is true both in terms of thinking about which events to participate in and what to say at those events.

I was wondering how you think about your public role in general and how you make decisions about how to engage, and, and particularly in light of the, the norms that limit, to some extent, commentary by sitting justices on matters that might come before the court?

[Justice Sotomayor]

Everybody would love to ask me how particular cases of interest to them would come out.

I really can’t tell you, okay?

In part because sometimes I don’t know, but in part because it would be inappropriate.

Don’t you think that it would be strange if I, as a justice, um, answered today a burning question that you have about how I would vote on a case that I haven’t heard or that I’ve heard but haven’t conferenced with my colleagues?

You would likely believe that I was a little biased, wouldn’t you?

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]

Um, and it’s not that we don’t go into the process with some idea or some inclination about the issue. We’re students of legal issues, and we’ve been thinking about them.

But the one thing I’ve learned through my many, many years of being a judge, which is that that process of adjudication CAN change your mind.

And so it’s important to try to keep an open mind. But we’re human beings, and if we announced today what our ruling is going to be, that kind of locks you into place.

So, knowing that I can’t satisfy people by the way, that’s what happened during the Senate Confirmation Hearings. That’s why they’ll never be a success because all the senators want to know is how I’ll vote on whatever issue is important to them, right?

And since I got to keep saying, “I can’t answer that question,” they get very frustrated.

But having said that, as I thought about my role, my sense of what I COULD do that would be meaningful to people, at least in my judgment, okay?

I have I realized that the court is a mystery to a lot of people.

You sort of it’s not like the other branches of government. We don’t have cameras in the courtroom, and you can wait until the end and I’ll tell you how my thinking has changed about that.

Um, and we don’t often go out and talk publicly about our internal deliberations. We shouldn’t and so we don’t. It remains a mystery to many people. And I think that that’s a bad idea.

I realized that if people understood we were human beings. If they understood that we carry with us both backgrounds and experiences, that they don’t inform our decision-making, but they certainly inform the process and our discussions among ourselves because our experiences become part of the conversation of, “Does this happen frequently?”

Now, a lot of people think that means happens in cases involving my gender or my ethnic background. But you know when it happens most frequently?

When we’re talking about whether an issue of discretion in the lower courts arises often. And because I’m one of the few justices that have served on both the district court and the circuit court, I can actually talk from experience.

And so, for me, the value and the choice I made when I got on the court was, look, can’t talk about the internal deliberations, but if I can talk to the general public about who I am, how importunate, important and passionate I am about the law. How important and passionate my colleagues are about it, even when we disagree, then maybe we can change people’s perception of the court as a distant and unknowable institution.

But I also realize there was another role for me and one that I embrace, ah, openly, which is I believe in being a citizen lawyer, first and foremost.

And it’s a praise, that I, that I took from one of my colleagues, Justice Scalia. Many, many years back, I won’t say how many because he’d be shocked too, if he were with us. I introduced him at a law school function, and his speech was entitled “Citizen Lawyers.

And he talked about the fact that our Founding Fathers were all lawyers, businessmen, they had to make a living, they had to support their families, but they made sacrifices for a nation that they wanted to grow and help create.

And he talked about the importance of both law but the participation of lawyers in our community, and in stimulating and bettering our lives. And that talk has always stayed with me.

And so, in most of my conversations with people, that’s a really big part of what I’m trying to instill in you.

If I can make you walk out of this courtroom – Out of this courtroom? Out of this auditorium.

[laughter]

But the courtroom too. If I can make you walk out of this auditorium more invigorated about participating, about becoming more civically involved – in the way you choose because I don’t have a particular format Work in your local schools. Work through your churches. Work in your block associations. Work to make us a better place for everyone. Then I’ve accomplished my goals.

And I set those goals from a sense of there was a place that I could leave an important legacy. Inspiring people to do more, because if we work at it together, we can actually improve some of the bigger problems that our society faces.

[Lindsey Powell]
And now a very high bar has been set for this event.

[Justice Sotomayor]
Yes.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
Now, some of you may know that when I was a child, my mother made up a name for me. It was called Aji, which is hot pepper

[laughter]

and what she meant about it was that I never seemed to sit still. I was always bouncing up and down and running and playing. Never paying much attention to her or to anything else but what interested me. I call it curiosity, okay?

[laughter]

Ah, she called it other things. But, um, I still am like that, and I don’t like sitting down talking to people. I like walking around. So that’s what I’m about to do.

[laughter]

Now, you’ll see gentlemen and women in suits. Most of them have these little things in their ears. They’re a they’re the U.S. Marshals or your local police, and they’re here to protect me from myself, not from you.

[laughter]

They don’t like that I do this. I do it anyway.

[laughter]

But you will create a problem if you jump up unexpectedly.

[laughter]

All right? Then they get really nervous.

[laughter]

So, I’ll walk around. I’ll shake your hand. I might touch your shoulder. If I recognize somebody in the audience, I might hug them. Um, and I even give some other people hugs. But

[laughter]

don’t jump up. Don’t scare them, okay? All right, so I’m going to continue. I hope it’s not disconcerting to the two of you.

[Lindsey Powell}
No, we’ll shout after you.

[Robert Yablon]
Well probablywe’ll stay here though.

[Justice Sotomayor}
They both they both

[laughter]

[Robert Yablon]
Unless anyone wants a hug.
[Justice Sotomayor]
they both have children under the age of three. They’re not running after me. Okay.

[Lindsey Powell]
Should I let you get down the stairs first? Or

[Justice Sotomayor]
Yeah, you can ask a question

[Lindsey Powell]
Okay.

[Justice Sotomayor]
and I’ll bear it in mind.

[laughter]

[Lindsey Powell]
Ah, so, as you just mentioned, you’ve worked on, ah, the district court, and the Court of Appeals, as well as the Supreme Court, and you’ve, ah, noted in previous talks and writings that the experience, um, on each has been strikingly different.

And I’m wondering if there’s something that stood out to you when you got to the Supreme Court that particularly surprised you about it, either the work or the community there?

Or whether there’s something that you think would come as a surprise to people less familiar with the court?

[Justice Sotomayor]
Well, maybe I should go to the background and describe what I think the differences are among the three levels. And there are differences.

When you’re on the district court, I’ve often said this is the trial court. It’s the first court the parties are coming before.

And there, the facts of the case are being developed. The district court judge is a singular judge looking and developing those facts and looking at the law that the parties are arguing about and rendering a decision in the case.

But a large part of the work of a district court judge is resolving the issue between the parties. That’s why there are so many settlement agreements in trial level because what you’re trying to do is do justice for the two parties in front of you. That’s your focus. They have a problem. You’re trying to help THEM come to a resolution.

And sometimes they can do it voluntarily and consent to settlement, and other times they want you to fix it for them and you do.

But that is really the idea, the focus that you’re on.

You’re the first court, so you’re going to get some interesting novel questions. But the vast majority of your caseload is not those really, you know, Supreme Court cases.

They are the general work of a judge. They are the individual disputes between parties that are largely controlled by existing precedent. And so, for those parties, you’re not a referee but you’re the person attempting to do what’s right for them under the law.

When you get to the appellate court, it means somebody lost below, right? You’re not going to appeal a win.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
Although, surprisingly enough, there are people who do.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
Because they don’t like how they won, all right? And there’s a lot of rules about that, about when you can do that and when you can’t.

But on the appeals court, typically, at least in the federal system, less so in the state system by the way.

Um, in many, many state systems, and I can’t speak about Wisconsin because I didn’t practice here and am less familiar with it. But in the state systems appeals courts can sometimes review the facts. And they can actually determine whether the trial court or the jury made an error in the facts.
And so in state courts, more frequently, the courts will overturn a jury finding or even a judge finding on the basis of facts.

But that’s not true in the federal system. In the federal system, you can only appeal an error in the law. And there’s always a “but” in everything in life.

Some facts, but they’re more narrowly confined, okay?

Did a judge say that a witness said the light was green, but in fact the record shows the witness said the light was red? So, there are some factual disputes that can be answered or looked at.

But because you’re looking at the law, errors of law in the main, you’re really looking at how do I decide this question, both guided by Supreme Court precedent, but often there’s a whole lot of that the appellate courts below the Supreme Court rule on that never get to the Supreme Court.

There’s tons and tons of issues that circuit court judges across the country are dealing with every day that will never appear before the Supreme Court.

I’ll explain why in a moment, okay?

So, you’re trying, as a circuit court judge, to get the law right for your circuit. And your circuit – we’re 13 in the United States – and the states and the territories are divided up among the 13 circuit courts, not in equal numbers, by the way. It’s all historical. The circuits have been created both from the foundation of the creation of the federal system, um, where the first circuit was Boston and the states under it.

The second, where I served, only had three states: New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, and that was because New York had the most cases. And so, they tried to tag us with states that had lesser number of cases.

The 9th circuit is the biggest today, and there’s been talks about breaking it up, but under the 9th circuit there are nine states and one territory. And it is burgeoning with cases. But that’s because when the 9th circuit was created, those states were under populated. That changed.

All right?

So, anyway, the circuit court: I described what we’re trying to do on a circuit court is to do justice for the circuit, and go to, for the law, justice for whatever the Supreme Court has said the law is. But in all of those other areas that are not likely to get before the court, our focus is ensuring on consistency within the jurisprudence that the court is involved in.

Now, go to the Supreme Court, okay?

And what do you have?

You have a court who’s responsible for making sure that there’s consistency across the nation.

So, when do we take cases?

We take cases only when there’s been a circuit split, generally. A few exceptions but they’re rare. Most of the time we’re waiting to see whether the courts below can agree on the right answer.

So, you’ve got 13 circuits, 50 odd state Supreme Courts, and a bunch of territorial high courts often ruling on the same question and, with some frequency, disagreeing. And that’s when we take the case.

It is impossible for me to tell you what makes a difference between two circuits disagreeing or three or four, or five or six. Generally, when we’re on the court, we’re looking at what the arguments have been in the courts below, and if we can identify a part of the problem that hasn’t been fully aired in the courts below, we wait.

There are some cases where the split is not likely to air much new because of the nature of the question. And we might grant cert on a one-to-one split. So, it really depends, depends on that percolation.

The reason for the percolation is, you know, two lawyers go into court, the lawyers make the best arguments they can. A judge knocks down some of those arguments, finds one compelling. And the next person in another circuit, comes in and says, “I got a better argument. I’ve got a better approach.
And they go in and they find a different approach. And that circuit court takes that into consideration, and that process happens for a while.

And then, after a while, you start seeing that the arguments are repetitive and that they’re all centering around the nucleus of a legal issue. And that’s when the court will step in, more often than not.

So, what does the Supreme Court do?

We’re establishing the law for the whole country.

And we’re setting the boundaries of law on the facts of that particular case.

And so, we’re foreclosing an approach that to some people, was a winning argument in the courts below. And we’re setting the discussion on a different course, on a different trajectory. And what we’re looking to do is to do justice for law as it’s developing.

That’s a really different approach. That’s why, if you listen to Supreme Court arguments, you will often hear hypotheticals from the justices. If we rule this way, what’s the stopping point of your principle of law? Will it mean that we will have to undo the development of law in this other field? Does it mean that we’re going to reach an absurd result? Because if we carry your argument to its logical conclusion

I’ll give one from the Obamacare case: Does it mean that the government can force you to eat broccoli?

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
All right? Um, those are the kinds of questions we’re asking because we understand that our rulings have a long term effect. And so, we are looking not at consistency necessarily within the law of a circuit, nor the individual justice issues of a case, but of the development of the law as a cohesive whole in a particular area.

And so, that’s a lot of different views that are being considered and talked about.

And so, Lindsey’s question was: “How is being on the Supreme Court different?”

We can sometimes lose sight of the individuals involved in a case, because many of our questions are questions of law. It’s an evil that most justices are aware of. To remind yourself every day that there are actually human lives at issue, not just a cold record that we’re reading.

Um, you know, sometimes I go out into the courtroom, and particularly in some important cases, and look around and try to guess who the litigant is.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
I actually don’t go on the Internet because I think that’s fairthat’s unfair. So, I just go in and watch people watching us.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
And try to guess who’s the person for whom it seems really personal. And sometimes when we rule, occasionally, the people are in the courtroom. And when you see people cry, it does move you. Sometimes they’re tears of joy, but sometimes they’re tears of deep sorrow.

Um, I personally had not anticipated how hard decision-making is on the court, because of that big, that win and lose part of the court and the fact that we are affecting lives throughout the country and sometimes across the world in our rulings. I’m always conscious that what I do will always affect someone negatively. Judging brings me less joy in this situation because of it.

Mind you, I only vote in the way I think is right under the law, but justice has a price and it’s one that I think all of us should remember. It’s part of that, the civic engagement and should be.

So, whenever you’re happy about one of our outcomes, think about the other side because there will be ALWAYS another side. So, I think that’s the biggest difference.

It’s also harder to negotiate with nine people than it was with three.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor}
No, no, no, seriously.

Ah, you know, when I was on the court of appeals, every court of appeals judge knows how to count to two. One, two.
[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
Majority, you win, okay?

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
You’re on the Supreme Court, you’ve got to count longer. You gotta count to four. Because you need five to win, okay?

And that tells you that it’s already harder to convince four other people than to convince one other person.

There’s also group dynamics involved. There’s certainly pressure when a larger group of justices think the answer is one way and you think the answer should be another way. You know?

It’s harder to resist. It’s like a jury of 12. Those holdouts have a lot of courage, [laughs] and they really have to question themselves very carefully before they author a dissenting opinion or hold out because you really have to check if you’re right.

As one of my colleagues has often said, when eight other people are disagreeing with you, you better open your mind to the possibility you’re wrong.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
Um, and that is true. That’s why you will rarely see a solo dissenting opinion. Um, it happens, but it doesn’t happen as frequently as one would expect because of the group dynamics.

Um, and, finally, I never understood how comforting it was to be on the lower court and have someone above me fix my mistakes.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
I don’t have that luxury now. It’s really hard.

I’m not turning my back. That poor camera guy is following me around.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
And I really don’t it’s not from a lack of humility, believe me. Um, but there are people watching this, and I want them to see me answering questions. It’s easier to do that than to watch a screen with my, the back of my head. So

[Robert Yablon]
So, Justice, maybe I’ll try to build on Lindsey’s question and make it a, a, a little bit more difficult.

[Justice Sotomayor]
Okay. Oh, go ahead.

[Robert Yablon]
So, your

[Justice Sotomayor, interrupting]
That’s what they did to me the entire year, you know that?

[laughter]

[Robert Yablon]
your career path has given you a very unique vantage point, ah, on our system of justice.

You have you know, you tried hundreds of cases as a local prosecutor in New York. You probably participated in hundreds more when you were in private practice. As a district and appellate court judge, you decided thousands of cases. You see thousands of petitions for review every year at the Supreme Court. In your estimation, what is it that our judicial system does well and not so well, and how might we be able to make it better?

[Justice Sotomayor]
Well, our judicial system really does very well in trying to teach judges to be fair and impartial. I think most judges really aspire to uphold that standard. And having traveled around the world and talked to judges from all over the world, I have learned that the little corruption we have is a standard of hope for the rest of the world.

That’s not to say we don’t have some. There are judges who have been prosecuted and convicted. But our numbers is infinitesimally small compared to the corruption other nations face.

And we have an ethics about fairness that is hard to teach to people. It is imbued in our culture in a way that, for me, drives who I am and my work as a judge, and I think it drives the work of almost every other judge.
Uh, that passion, that sense of decency, that sense of impartiality being the starting point for judging I think is the best thing our system has.

It doesn’t mean that we’re perfect at meeting that standard. But if you don’t value it, you’re never even going to try. And I think we try really hard. Imperfect as it may be, as incomplete as it may be sometimes, we work at it, and I’m very proud of that.

It also means that we’re really good, most judicial systems, at trying to ensure that all parties, rich or poor, represented or not, are given a fair shake in court.

All of the courts that I’ve been part of have been very dutiful in attempting to ensure that the submissions of unrepresented parties, pro se parties, that someone in the court is trying to read sometimes unintelligible papers and make sense of them and present the best arguments that can be presented for the unrepresented client.

But… We really have a difficult time in explaining to people why we don’t provide lawyers.

You know, in other parts of the world, some issues are so important to people in the rest of the world that issues like family law are not state law questions, they’re federal questions. They’re federal questions because there is a belief that if you believe in family values, that that is a country issue. That’s not an individual state issue. That that is part of your identity as a country.

And in many, many parts of the world, if you’re going to deprive a parent of custody of their child, you better give them a lawyer. And we don’t. We have an unequal representation of people in our court system. And that does, I think, provide an injustice that we don’t pay enough attention to.

Look, the court has recognized a right to counsel in trials.

The Constitution does not recognize a right to counsel in appellate work, by the way. That’s been created out of the due process clause.

And in an indirect way, the Supreme Court has said, “We’re not going to recognize the judgments of state courts who don’t provide lawyers to accused defendants in, or convicted defendants, in their appeals process.

So, most states have done that because they want their judgments to stand up in subsequent federal litigation. But it’s not an automatic right.

But we do very little to control the quality of those lawyers. And we’re very easy as a society to cut their pay. Some of the worst paid lawyers in our criminal justice system are criminal defense lawyers. Both as federal defenders or legal aid defenders in the state system or as criminal justice attorneys who are taking on these cases.

Lastin the last few years, when this federal system had a budget cut, do you know whose pay they held up? They held up the federal criminal justice attorneys. Many of them were working for free.

They’re entitled to a living too, you know.

They ultimately got paid, but they have overhead and they have families like you and I. And they’re the worst paid of any lawyer that we pay.

So, we have to as a society, be thinking more clearly, I think, about the principles that are important to us as a nation. To speak the words justice means that with it comes responsibilities. Responsibilities as citizens and as participants in our society to ensure that people accessing the courts are given a fair and equal opportunity to do that.

And so, for me, the lack of legal representation in some critical areas is one of the things we don’t do well.

[Lindsey Powell]
I’m going to shift gears a little bit with the next question. You’ve, um, talked and written about your experiences coming into new context and the, um, effects that being a person of color has had on those experiences for you.

And I was wondering what, um, you’ve taken away from that with respect to the value of diversity, whether it’s in social settings, educational ones, or professional ones. And, as a corollary to that, um, whether those experiences have shaped your views of the law?

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
How old are you?

[Young audience member]
Um, Eight.

[Justice Sotomayor]
Anybody under eight gets a picture, okay?

[laughter]
[Justice Sotomayor]
Got to limit it somewhere, you know?

[applause]

[Justice Sotomayor, to cameraperson]
Do you have me covered over there? Can I turn around?

Can I?

Great. Then I don’t have to walk backwards.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
Hello. Hello.

You know, I was speaking to a group of high school students today, and one of them asked me slightly different version of your question, which is: How has being Latina affected my judging?

She wasI shouldn’t say obviously but she was of Latina background. And I said to her, I don’t know

[Justice Sotomayor to audience member]
Thank you. I saw the Wisconsin chair.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor to audience member]
Look. We were just talking about the Terrace chair. Thank you.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor to audience member]
Thank you very much. That is pretty. Ah, I’m going to see the Terrace after this finishes, okay?

Anyhow,um

[applause]

[Justice Sotomayor]
And I said to her, I started with: “I’m a judge, but what am, what am I first?”

[inaudible response]
[Justice Sotomayor]
No.

[inaudible response]

[Justice Sotomayor]
No.

[inaudible response]

[Justice Sotomayor]
No.

[inaudible response]

[Justice Sotomayor]
A person. A human being. First and foremost. And every human being has strengths, has weaknesses, but we learn from what? From experience. From study, from thinking, from developing, from babies to adults to more senior people. But every experience makes us a piece of who we are.

Sonia’s not just a Latina. She’s not just a woman. She’s a person who had a Catholic school education that brings with it some sense of experiences that are going to be different from some other people.

I was a prosecutor, not a defense attorney. I’ve been a commercial practitioner representing big companies. Um, I’ve been a district, a circuit court judge, and now a Supreme Court judge. Yes, and I am a Latina.

But in all of that mix, there’s just one me.

And there isn’t one piece of me that takes control in judicial decision-making. It is the experience of learning about the law and how to interpret the law, of how to be a judge that I’ve picked up in all of the experiences I’ve had, both educational and life and professional. And each one contributes to creating a person who thinks about life from their various perspectives. And each one of them makes me Can I hand this to somebody?

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
and each one of them makes it possible for me to hear things or understand things that others might not find so easy to hear or understand.

So, let me give you a prime example. Um, Robs, uh, prior other justice, okay? His first justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Many years ago, there was a case.
I wasn’t a part of it, okay? So, I’m not talking about anything confidential.

Called Stafford, involving, I think, it was a 13- or 14-year-old girl in public school, who, a person said to another person said to another person, was seen taking an aspirin.

This was a no drug policy school. She was called into the principal’s office. She said, “No.” The principal said, “I’m going to search you. And they undressed her and searched her.

Her parents brought a Fourth Amendment claim about whether the school was entitled to do this without probable cause. It’s a technical term. Did they have compelling evidence that she actually took the aspirin?

In a court of law, more likely than not, a court would say no, hearsay on hearsay. This person, who we don’t know who it is, told that person, who we don’t know who it was, told this person, who we don’t know who it was, and finally, it got to the school. We would say before you search somebody, you better have a little bit more than that, okay?

So, her mother came into court. During oral argument, and this is all part of the public record, some of, or one or more of my colleagues analogized this search as being similar to getting undressed in a gym locker.

Ah, my colleague Ruth Bader Ginsburg was heard to say some time after that she believed that her other male colleagues did not understand how sensitive 13-year-old girls are about the privacy of their bodies and may not respect how hard parents work at ensuring that both their male and female children treasure their own bodies and access to it. There was a lot of criticism of Justice Ginsburg’s observation. She shouldn’t have said it. Blah, blah, blah.
We could go on and on, okay?

Now, why was that important? Did it change any votes? I doubt it. I wasn’t there. I can’t tell you. But what it avoided was a justice writing about that experience in the way the question was asked and saying, What’s wrong with this girl? Why was she traumatized by being having her body searched? I don’t believe it. That would have been so painful to so many girls and it would have been painful to so many women, but it wasn’t said. And so, life experiences can sometimes avoid things like that happening.

It does happen that justices pick out the use of a word that evokes images in others that a justice with that life experience might say, “That’s really not a good word; Let’s find another one.” You know, it’s going to distract people from the opinion because they’re going to jump to the wrong conclusion.

It makes a difference. It makes a difference in how you talk about things and how arguments are articulated and considered. And so, yes, diversity, to me, not just of gender or ethnic background or religion, but diversity of life experiences I believe are the most important part of what you want to look at in judges.

Im often on my interviewing with 90-odd senators during my confirmation hearing, some of them would ask me: What do I look for when I’m picking a judge? And I would say to them: Look at the bench you have and find out what parts of the professional practice of law are not represented. Because the more diversity in professional experience and life experience that people have the more fulsome the conversation will be about the law.

You can imagine that with nine people on the Supreme Court, and you say: Well, how can you do that with three? And: What difference does it make with an individual district court judge? But that misunderstands the talk that judges do in their opinion writing.

You know, every time I had a question come before me, I would read the opinions of judges in my, in my district, district court judges across the country, circuit court judges. We educate each other in our opinion writing, and the greater variety of people you have serving, the more likely that every side of every issue will be engaged and will be thought about.

Doesn’t mean we’re going to rule the right way, but we got a better shot at it, don’t we? If we understahave more information. And so that, to me, is the critical importance of diversity. It gives us an opportunity to think outside our own perspective and to think about how other people are experiencing what you think is one way and they feel it’s another. It’s really important to do that.

What do you all think the conversation about the killings is about now? Of police and defendants? It’s all about learning to listen to one another. And so, for me, that is the most critical part of picking a judge. What diversity of experience do they bring that will enhance the conversation of judging?

[Robert Yablon]
Justice, as the audience is getting to see for itself, you are someone who is passionate in everything you do. Ah

{Justice Sotomayor, interrupting]
I’m sorry I can’t get up there. You’re too far away.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
I really am. Sorry.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
I hope coming closer helped it a little bit.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotmayor]
But go ahead, Rob. I’m sorry.

[Robert Yablon]
so, passionate person. I think there’s no one, no one in this room who would disagree with that.

Ah, an area where you seem to be particularly passionate is criminal law. And, ah, it’s an area where you have written opinions that have garnered a lot of, um, public attention.

I’m thinking, for example, of your concurring opinion a few years ago in the United States v. Jones, which was a case involving GPS surveillance. There was a dissent you wrote earlier this year in Utah v. Strieff, which involved, um, stops by police officers, ah, when the person they stopped is found to have an outstanding warrant.

And I’m wondering what it is about criminal law cases that excites you, and , um, how has your experience, whether as a prosecutor, a district court judge, or someone who grew up in the environment you did ,um, influence your thinking about those cases?

[Justice Sotomayor]
You know, when I left being a prosecutor in New York, I didn’t want to practice criminal law anymore. I purposely decided to leave the criminal law area and go into commercial law.

It was that I had sat in the DA’s office one morning, taking new complaints, and I read a set of facts and I said to myself: This is identical to a case that I prosecuted three years ago. And I looked up and it was the same defendant having committed the identical crime.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
And I thought to myself, I’m on the wrong end of this.

By the time defendants get to the criminal justice system, it’s so much harder to turn their lives around.

I don’t give up the hope that there is rehabilitation possible for a lot of people, but it’s harder. It’s much more it’s much easier, a better investment, both of my time and our resources, I think, as a nation, to invest in kids when they’re young. To keep them away from the temptations of the streets than to undo the bad that the streets create.

I’ve often been asked, for those of you who’ve read my book: I’m a Supreme Court Justice, my 28-year-old cousin, Nelson, who was smarter than I was by a lot, more talented than I’ve ever been, he died at 28 of AIDS.

And as I wrote my book, I was trying to think what were the differences between us. And it turned out that the biggest difference was that he was male and less protected on the streets. Me, I was never left alone to walk the streets of the South Bronx. There was always someone accompanying me. Either my mom, my grandmother, my aunt, but there was always an adult to protect the girl.

And I was kept busy with after-school activities and engaged in ways that kept me from the temptations that existed around me. He wasn’t. And I really think that that made a huge, huge difference in the paths we took.

I had the Justices ask me, not so long ago, we were sitting at lunch one day, and one justice said to me, “Sonia, how do we make more of you?”

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
It was a strange question, okay?

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
It is a strange question. But I said to him, I spend a lot of time right now at after-school supplemental activities programs. Everywhere across the country.

There’s a Renaissance center in the Bronx that I have visited, and I think it’s marvelous. It’s called the STEM plus center. They teach STEM studies, but they also teach what my cousin loved – music and arts – to engage those students who are involved in those activities.

Those kids go there every day after school. From there they go home pretty late, and they’re going home. They’re not going to play out on the streets.

I think those kids have a better shot at success than the kids who are latchkey, latchkey kids like me, um, and whose parents can’t or don’t have a mechanism to have their children watched.

And so, I work with one of those programs in DC. It mentors kids in high school by giving them an adult mentor. I have a few

[to Robert and Lindsey]
I didn’t participate in this when you guys were around.

but I have a few former law clerks who are now part of the program.

Um, and they meet with a tutor once a week to help them in the subjects they’re having difficulty with. The tutor is like a Big Sister or a Big Brother and introduces them to activities they might not otherwise be familiar with and encourages them to go to college.

This program has 100% success rate of getting their kids into college with scholarships, and I’m convinced it’s because someone who knows is paying attention to those kids.

And now they started and I was very proud of being a part of this movement in the program they’re doing Skyping once a week with the kids in college to keep them in college. And the two years that they’ve run the Skyping, none of the kids have left college.

So, we have to pay more attention to activities of these natures to keep our kids off.

Now, that hasn’t answered your question, Rob. I’m getting there.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor}
I’m getting there. All right?

Linda Greenhouse, who was a reporter on the court for many, many years, and she’s with the New York Times. She’s now teaching at Yale Law School.

Ah, Linda and I had a conversation at the Law at my alma mater, Yale, a number of years back. And she asked me what was the difference between me and Justice Alito? We were both district court judges. I was a district court judge. We were both circuit court judges. We both come from Ivy League schools.

Why am I willing to be more pro-defendant than he is? Our voting records show that he almost inevitably votes in favor of the government in criminal law cases. And I don’t always vote against the government, by the way.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor}
There’s a lot of cases where I vote in favor of the government. But there are some that are more noteworthy than others where I have not agreed with the government.

And I said to him, I, I thought about it, not to him, to Linda, I thought about the question and I said I think it’s the nature of the prosecutorial work we do.

If you’re a federal prosecutor, you have a lot of resources. You have a standard of prosecution that has been set in generations of high integrity and real care, and I think most people in the federal system come away with a great respect for the safeguards that are built in to the federal system, the federal criminal system.

In the state system, you try your cases by the seat of your pants.
[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
There are SO many cases, SO little resources. Often prosecutors are meeting their witnesses in the hallway before the jury comes in.

Many times you haven’t had time to do the background checks that you should be doing. You rely on a good defense attorney coming to you and telling you you’ve got this weakness, look at it. And sometimes when they do that, you actually stop a moment, take a deep breath, and go out and look at it and find out, ah-ha, he’s right, okay? Or she’s right.

But you can’t do that when you’re overwhelmed with SO many cases, and there’s only so many hours in a day. Most state prosecutors are working long hours. Weekends and nights. I was. But with that kind of lack of resources impressed a business, which affects not just your office, but the police force who’s investigating their cases. You’re more willing when you’ve been a state prosecutor to understand that the system can fail sometimes.

That the checks that we put in against police excess, against unfair treatments of defendants are necessary to perfect our criminal law system. They’re not evils that have to unshackle the police from doing their work. They are measures that exist because we’re trying to make our system fair. We’re trying to ensure that as few innocent people are convicted as we can manage in an imperfect life situation.

You know, my colleague Justice Scalia used to say: Every system is fallible. Some innocent people are going to go to jail. He’s right. But you have to try to ensure that you minimize that as much as you humanly can without completely hobbling the process. And so, I’m getting to my answer, Rob.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor}
And so, for me, I’ve been a judge, both on the district court but even as a prosecutor, who really believes in the process that through the ages the Supreme Court has created. The protections in place, I know, I feel deeply, that we have recognized and passed, not passed as a court, but recognized as a court, have been important safeguards to the system.

And so, I’m a great, great believer in the courts precedents, both as a district court, court of appeals, and now as a Supreme Court justice. I let those precedents guide me in my decision-making. And if you read those dissents that Rob’s talking about, ah, most people are talking about the last part of the dissents, of my dissents, where I’m talking from my personal professional experiences. Many of them miss the point of the first two-thirds part.

The first two-thirds part are explaining what the law has actually been. It’s what I did in my affirmative action dissent, what I’ve done in this dissent he’s talking about. I show what the court has said. I show what the court has done. I point to what I think are misstatements by the majority, or mischaracterizations of precedence. I am not ruling from some personal feeling that this is the right thing to do. I’m using our precedence and saying this is what we’ve done. This is what we have said. This is not the time to change it.

And I haven’t been successful.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
But it does guide me in deciding when I should speak out and point out the negative practical consequences of decisions the courts are rendering.

I do believe that law serves people. And to the extent it does, there are moments where I have written and said I don’t like the decision I’m rendering, I think it’s a bad policy choice, but it’s not a choice for me to make.
And so, I’m writing for Congress or for the public in the hope that they will galvanize themselves to change what I think is a bad policy or a bad term.

But when the court is taking one, then I can say something. And I really do think that, as a judge, I have an obligation in every ruling I make. It’s that question of the burden I feel, to understand the impact of the decisions I make. And don’t ever doubt that I understand the good and the bad. But I decide I must because that’s what judges do.

Ah, but in criminal law, we are taking away people’s freedom, and that has a big consequence. I think more than a monetary loss.

Now, there’s some people who would disagree with that balance, but, for me, the loss of your freedom is perhaps the most valuable treasure we each own. And so, that’s an area where more likely not more likely, but where articulating the other side seems important to me.

I answered your question, right?

[Robert Yablon]
You did.

[Justice Sotomayor]
Okay.

[laughter]

[Robert Yablon]
So, you’ve referenced a couple of times your, um, your former colleague Justice Scalia, and his passing was one of the biggest events of the previous term at the court. Um, he was

[Justice Sotomayor}
It may, it may still be a big event this coming year too.

[laughter]

[Robert Yablon]
He was one of the courts most prominent and outspoken members. He was a fellow New Yorker and fellow Yankees fan.

[Justice Sotomayor]
Ah, I feel so guilty. Um, he was so upset that I was embraced as a Yankees fan because he was one too, but people didn’t recognize it as much, and I kept saying to him, “I was born in the Bronx. You were born in Queens. What do you think people are going to think, you know?”
[laughter and applause]

{Justice Sotomayor]
But I had promised him that I would go to a baseball, a Yankee baseball game with him, and we never got it organized.

[Robert Yablon]
But, I

[Justice Sotomayor]
And I’m really sorry about that. I did take Maureen, his wife, and one of his granddaughters and her mom, who loved the Nationals, to a Nationals game this past year. So, it doesn’t make up for what I didn’t do.

It reminded me that if there are special things you want to do in life, don’t put them off. And I, that’s a lesson we all have to keep in mind all the time.

[Robert Yablon]
Well, you’ve already begun answering my question with that without me, without me even having to ask it.

[laughter]
[Robert Yablon}
But I, but I wonder if you could reflect just a little bit more on your, on your relationship with him and maybe on how his loss has been felt within the court.

[Justice Sotomayor]
Deeply. Deeply. Um, I told the story earlier, ah, to the law school faculty, and so some of them are gonna hear it again.

We had a public service at the Court for Justice Scalia. And in the Great Hall, which is the hall in front of the courtroom doors. And it’s a long hallway. On, ah, each side of the hallway there are pillars holding up the upper floors. But in between the pillars are, ah, marble casts of all the Chief Justices of the Court. It’s a very moving space. You walk into it and you’re sort of struck with the solemnity and the sense of importance of this historical building.

Um, his law clerks, of which there were over a hundred, because he had served, I think, 25 years on the Court, 26. So, four times is about a hundred or more. He had some in the courts below. They lined the staircases and his casket was carried up the stairs by an honor guard of Supreme Court police officers.

Ah, the Justices entered the hall before the his body came rolling in, or walked in, and there was a portrait of him at the front.

Um, as we walked out, I heard Justices gasp and choking.

Um, when I got to the front, because I was one of thewe senior Justices, I could look behind as my colleagues followed me. And I saw tears in just about everybody’s eyes.

He was obviously closer to some people than to others because you can’t have eight equal friends, okay? It’s hard.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor}
But what was unusual about him is that his friends weren’t of one similar judicial philosophy to him. Him and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who hardly, if ever, voted together

[laughter]

{Justice Sotomayor]
were best of friends. Her husband and, ah, his wife, Maureen and Marty, they traveled together. There’s a famous picture of them sitting on camels.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
You ever imagined Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Nina Scalia on camels?

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
Um, they loved the opera, and they would go together. They often sat in the chorus behind. I don’t know what that’s, thats called. Shows you how least interested I am, or lesser interested I am.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
But they get people from, ah, the normal walks of life to play sort of spectators on the stage in the opera. And they loved doing that.

Um, Nino led Christmas carols at our Christmas parties. He’d break into ditties when someone would say something that would bring up an old song he had heard decades ago.

Um, I said to the faculty this morning that at first I really thought I was very ignorant because a lot of these songs I had never heard. And then Elena Kagan came and I would say: “Have you heard that song?” And she’d say: “No.”

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
Made me feel better, okay?

Um, but Ruth and Steve Breyer, who were closer in age to Nino, often had heard the songs. You could see, you could see the comradery they shared. It’s a big hole in the Court. The Court is quieter.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
It’s not as lively as it was with his presence. We FEEL his absence.

The hardest thing, I think, for every one of us was walking into that courtroom that first week of arguments when his chair was draped in black.

I sat at one end at the time and often during arguments, you know maybe you don’t know the, ah, bench is bowed because for many decades it was straight and justices could not see each other from end to end.

So, at a certain point, they changed the shape so that we can actually look down the line and see each other. And my favorite view was looking at Nino making faces.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor}
I try not to emulate him, but I must say it was fun to watch, okay?

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor}
Um, and I could always know what he was thinking by

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
I’m making a face, for those who can’t see it, okay?

Um, or the big smile that would come before he was going to lay into a lawyer.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
Um, you know, you’re laughing, but this makes for engagement. It made for excitement. Um, in one event, I said he was like a brother. There were many, many annoying things he did.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
Sometimes he said some things where I wanted to jump up with a baseball bat and hit him over the heard.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
Um, but he was always interesting. And that holds a lot for a court that by nature is going to have disagreement. It’s hard to get unanimity among nine people, and it shouldn’t be easy. If you understand that the cases we take have created a circuit split, then you have to understand that by nature the questions we’re facing are hard. If they were easy, all of the courts below would agree.

A circuit split means that there’s arguments on both sides and that reasonable judges on each side have been convinced by a different set of arguments. And so, it shouldn’t be an expectation that the Supreme Court is more reasonable than all of those other judges below. Or that we possess some magical power that can tell us what Congress was thinking.

[laughter]

[Justice Sotomayor]
No, we’re playing sort of detective. We’re trying to figure out what the Congress meant in laws it passed. And that requires a set of interpretory rules, tools, that we’re all using.

But, you know, if you start building a house with a saw, you’re going to get one kind of house. Then if you start building a house without nails, um, or that you’ve cut in a different way, it’s going to have a different look.

And so, the tools – We all use the same toolbox, but in what order we use those tools of interpretation, how we approach that construction or deconstruction project will often lead to different results. I think it’s more surprising when we agree than when we disagree.

[Lindsey Powell]
So, I think we have time for just one more question, and I’m going to go ahead and sneak two in there.

[laughter]

[Lindsey Powell]
Ah, you’ve said before that no one succeeds by themselves, and you’ve been generous both in, um, talking about those who have mentored you and in mentoring, um, others, ah, who have come across your path.

And so, my first question is, ah: Can you tell us a little bit about one mentorship, um, experience with one of your mentors that’s been particularly important to you and, ah, stands out among the others?

And, second, what – putting on your own mentor hat – what advice would you give, ah, to those in the audience, particularly the aspiring and new lawyers among us?

[Justice Sotomayor]
Um, remember who Lindsey clerked for before me, okay? Ah, because I think she’s heard me say this story before.

I think I have been mentored by many extraordinary judges in my career, but there’s one in particular that probably changed the course of my life on the court. And that’s Justice John Paul Stevens and the one year we overlapped.

Um, one of the things I did that first year was to keep track as I read the cert petition memos that came from our law clerks about all the petitions to review cases that passed through the court, And I would make a list of the ones that were troubling me.

Each Justice can add to the discussed, the chief’s discussed list. He lists all the cases he thinks we should talk about. And then, the next day or the day after, each justice can list those cases he or she thinks should be talked about. So, the list grows.

If you’re a new justice, sometimes it’s pretty hard to figure out what you should talk about or not, okay? You haven’t been there. You haven’t had the experience.

And that first year, the person I chose to be my barometer was John Paul Stevens. And the reason was that very often the cases that he listed on the discuss list were cases that had given me pause, but I hadn’t been brave enough to list.

And then, occasionally, I would have a case that I didn’t see him list, and I would call him up and say: “John, what’s important about this case? It didn’t seem that unusual to me.” And he would explain it to me, and most often than not I would say to him: “You know, John, I understand why you think it’s important, but I don’t think the others are going to agree. It doesn’t have this or that.

And he would say to me: “Sonia, I know when I list cases that I won’t often get people to agree with me. Often, it’s really unpopular cases that I’m listing just because we should talk about them. There are issues that we should think about even if we’re not going to vote to grant them at this time. And, Sonia, it’s okay to be a solo voice. Sometimes people have to speak as judges. Issues that need to be articulated, even if other people don’t agree.”

That advice probably led and leads to the many dissents I write where I don’t get a lot of people to join me. He gave me the courage to understand that some things just have to be thought about. That some things have to be discussed, considered, accepted or rejected, but that the views have to be thought about. And so, he changed the course of what I became as a Justice. And, for me, I think it was the most valuable freedom he could have given me.

So, what do I look for in – when I was a mentee – what did I look for in mentors? I looked for them to be more skilled than I was. Doing things that I didn’t know how to do. Teaching me things I wanted to learn more about and become better at. I also understood that most mentors, because they’re good at things, you got to look for people that are good at something, right? They’re really busy.

And the only way to get the attention of mentors, particularly at busy law firms, busy government jobs, etc., is by helping them. Volunteering. Helping them research an issue that’s important to them. Helping them think about a new problem and giving them a different perspective. Cite checking their articles.

Um, when I was in private practice, I was working with a lawyer I greatly admired, but I didn’t really like his work, and I wanted to work for someone else who was doing work I wanted.

So, for about a year, I was working two jobs. It then took that second year for the partner who I wanted to work with to say to the other partner, “I’m taking her.” That happens a lot. You end up working for someone who’s not your ideal match.
Well, you may have to volunteer and work a little bit harder at nights and weekends with the person you want to work, with the professor you want to work for, so that you can become their mentee.

Being a mentee requires you to work. You have to be want to take advantage of the situation, and you have to show your mentor that you’re willing to work as hard as they are. That you’re going to go every mile necessary to learn, to grow, to appreciate the time they’re spending with you, and to make that time valuable for yourself and for them.

And so, I have never forgotten to be grateful to my mentors. They spent time on me. They gave me their attention. Most importantly, they taught me how to be better at what I do. That’s the greatest gift any of us can ever receive. Improving ourselves, both as professionals and as human beings, because I often found mentors – and that was a big necessity for me – whose integrity I respected.

And so, I hope that that advice will be useful to you. I know that looking for those people who did things in a better way than I could was always a really good qualification for finding a mentor.

Are you through, or are you going to ask another question, you guys?

[Lindsey Powell]
We would love to keep going, but…

[Justice Sotomayor]
I’m thrilled you’re stopping it…
Thank you.
[cheers and applause]