October 18, 2012
On October 15, 2012, the Law School welcomed United States
Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan to campus. Justice Kagan began
her day meeting with members of the faculty for lunch and a
wide-r
anging conversation about legal education and the work of
the Court. She then spent an hour in Professor
Deepa Varadarajan’s Introduction to Intellectual Property
class, where she engaged in a spirited dialogue with students about
her experiences on the Court and her approach to deciding cases.
The centerpiece of her visit was a “conversation” with
Dean Michael A. Simons before an audience of students and
distinguished alumni and friends of the Law School in the Belson
Moot Court Room.
Opening the program, Dean Simons welcomed the New York City
native back to her hometown and then summarized her exceptional
career in academia and public service, including her service as the
first female dean of Harvard Law School and the first female
Solicitor General of the United States, and culminating in her 2010
appointment by President Barack Obama as 100th Associate Justice of
the Supreme Court of the United States.
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In each of her roles, Dean Simons said, Justice Kagan has earned
a reputation for being a down-to-earth consensus builder with a
powerful intellect and the ability to understand how the law and
legal problems affect ordinary people. These qualities are evident
in the clarity of her writing for the Court, even when addressing
complex legal issues. The same qualities resonated in the Moot
Court Room as Justice Kagan responded to Dean Simons’ questions
about her career path. Reflecting on the start of her time in the
law, she shared that she went to law school by default “for all the
wrong reasons,” but found she loved it because she could see how
“getting the law right” impacted people’s lives. Although she
brought little direct experience to the jobs she took on, Justice
Kagan said, she welcomed the “vertical learning curve,” enjoyed
building new skills and benefitted from finding the right
mentors.
When Dean Simons asked her about oral advocacy in the highest
Court, Justice Kagan noted that the best oral advocates are well
prepared to answer the hard questions and welcome the opportunity
to address perceived holes or flaws in their argument. She also
said that oral argument offers the nine Justices a preliminary
forum for discussing the case and airing their viewpoints before
they conference the case. As the conversation turned to the Court’s
constituency and the unprecedented presence of three female
Associate Justices, Justice Kagan said that having three women on
the bench sends a positive message to society about the Court as an
institution and about what women can accomplish.
Dean Simons then opened the floor to questions from students,
who learned that, despite often sharp methodological differences,
the current Court has “maintained its collegiality” as the Justices
all like each other. Justice Kagan also shared that the hardest
cases she has considered to date as an Associate Justice were two
involving First Amendment issues; one concerned free speech and
violent video games and the other false statements about military
decorations. Closing the conversation, Justice Kagan shared that
having one job to do for the rest of her life is something new for
her. “It’s a long time to do an incredible job.”
“It is always wonderful to be in the presence of someone who has
achieved so much in her professional life, but who still has the
ability and desire to relate to every single person in the room
with genuine interest, honesty and humor,” said Dean Simons. “It
was an honor and a privilege to welcome Justice Kagan to the Law
School. Our students appreciated and benefitted from her candor and
will keep her in their minds and hearts as an example of what it
means to be a consummate jurist.”
Reflecting on the experience, Megan Quail ’13 said: “I gained so
much from being part of this important event. It was inspiring to
hear how Justice Kagan took on her different professional roles by
embracing the learning opportunities they offered. She was very
open in sharing that there were times that she felt she had missed
an opportunity and gone ‘off the path.’ But, she said, there was
always something else around the corner. That is a very positive
message to impart to law students.”