Tag Archives: law clerk

Charles A. Reich (1928-2019)

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I am truly sad to report that former Yale law professor Charles Reich died last Saturday at age 91.  He was a brilliant mind, a beautiful writer, a wise teacher, a sharp lawyer, a kind soul, and a dear friend and hero to many.

Here’s an obituary article in today’s NYT:  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/17/books/charles-reich-dead.html.

Much will and much should be written about Charles Reich, his work, and his influence.  Writers will emphasize The Greening of America, surely and properly—these are its closing paragraphs, a permanent creed of hope:

We have all known the loneliness, the emptiness, the plastic isolation of contemporary America.  Our forebears came thousands of miles for the promise of a better life.  Now there is a new promise.  Shall we not seize it?  Shall we not be pioneers once more, since luck and fortune have given us a vision of hope?

The extraordinary thing about this new consciousness is that it has emerged out of the wasteland of the Corporate State, like flowers pushing up through the concrete pavement.  Whatever it touches it beautifies and renews, and every barrier falls before it.

We have been dulled and blinded to the injustice and ugliness of slums, but the new consciousness sees them as just that — injustice and ugliness —as if they had been there to see all along.  We have all been persuaded that giant organizations are necessary, but it sees that they are absurd, as if the absurdity had always been obvious and apparent.  We have all been induced to give up our dreams of adventure and romance in favor of the escalator of success, but it says that the escalator is a sham and the dream is real.

And these things, buried, hidden, and disowned in so many of us, are shouted out loud, believed in, affirmed by a growing multitude of young people who seem too healthy, intelligent and alive to be wholly insane, who appear, in their collective strength, capable of making it happen.  For one almost convinced that it was necessary to accept ugliness and evil, that it was necessary to be a miser of dreams, it is an invitation to cry or laugh.  For one who thought the world was irretrievably encased in metal and plastic and sterile stone, it seems a veritable greening of America.

They also will highlight his article “The New Property,” and how it led to the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Goldberg v. Kelly.

There’s much, much more.

See each of Charles Reich’s books.

See everything that Charles wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court, including what he wrote about Justice Hugo L. Black, for whom Charles clerked during October Term 1953, the term in which the Court decided Brown v. Board of Education.

See the twenty-four (at least) deep and lyrical law review articles that Charles published between 1962 and 2010,

See this fine Twitter thread by Professor Karen Tani:  https://twitter.com/kmtani/status/1140983478416052225.

Here is a blog where Charles Reich wrote and posted some things in the past couple of years: https://www.charlesareich.com/blog-1?fbclid=IwAR2ZHBkLCrS6DlJEEPLzdZb2RsUDM_ecjLtxfLIIUro8xfKz1d2wvAayO_o.  In the “Observatory” section, see his great photos of his friend Justice William O. Douglas hiking alongside the C&O Canal, and a super photo of them sharing a look, a canteen, and smiles.

I recall some advice that Charles gave me about law professor scholarship (and really it is advice about literature, which Charles knew well, and which he believed that any serious writing should try to be.)  He said that it is important to find worthy topics and do the very best that you can, with all that you know and with all that you can learn, from inside yourself, to write about them.  I asked him what his topic had been, especially when he was getting started.  He recalled spending a summer, I think it was the one after his first year of teaching, sitting in the Yale law library, working at a table covered with many books, writing “about America.”

He did it very, very well – he saw America, he loved it, and he improved it.

Robert B. von Mehren (1922-2016)

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Robert Brandt von Mehren, one of New York’s and the nation’s leading lawyers, especially in the field of arbitration, died on May 5th at age 93.  He was a retired partner in the Debevoise & Plimpton law firm, a Manhattan and Martha’s Vineyard resident, and a man of brilliance and, I found, charm and kindness.

In recent years, I spoke and emailed a few times with Mr. von Mehren as I was researching and writing an essay, “No College, No Prior Clerkship,” on James M. Marsh, Justice Robert H. Jackson’s 1947-1949 law clerk at the U.S. Supreme Court.  (Click here for an abstract of the essay, and click here to buy the new book, Of Courtiers and Kings: More Stories of Supreme Court Law Clerks and Their Justices, in which my essay appears along with many strong pieces and a range of fascinating material.)

I contacted Mr. von Mehren because he was a cameo player in the process by which Justice Jackson hired Jim Marsh.

In 1946, von Mehren was clerking for Judge Learned Hand at the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.  Prior to that, as a Harvard Law School student, von Mehren compiled a tremendous academic record, including serving as president of the Harvard Law Review.  Unbeknownst to von Mehren, someone—probably Jackson’s incumbent law clerk, Murray Gartner, himself a former Harvard Law Review president—had flagged von Mehren for Jackson’s consideration to be Gartner’s successor as Jackson’s law clerk.  Jackson was (properly) very impressed with von Mehren’s credentials, but in the end Jackson ranked von Mehren second to Marsh and hired him.

This all was news, and interesting, to Mr. von Mehren.  He told me that he never applied to or interviewed with Jackson.

It all worked out.  Justice Stanley Reed hired von Mehren to be his law clerk in that Supreme Court year (October Term 1947).  As Reed’s clerk, von Mehren got to see Justice Jackson and all of the Justices of that era (Vinson, Black, Frankfurter, Douglas, Murphy, Rutledge and Burton were the others) in action.  And von Mehren got to know and like Jackson’s clerk, Jim Marsh.

Justice Reed law clerk Robert von Mehren O.T. 1947

Von Mehren during his clerkship

with Justice Reed

Von Mehren’s path was a notable rise from remote beginnings.  He and his identical twin brother Arthur were born in Albert Lea, a city in southern Minnesota, in August 1922.  The boys grew up fluent in English, of course, and in Danish and Norwegian (hat tip:  Daniel R. Coquillette).  (Ninety-two years later, I could hear a trace of that—Robert pronounced his name “fun-MAY-won” in a soft European accent).

In high school, Robert won a scholarship to Yale University, from which he graduated summa cum laude.  At Harvard Law School, he graduated magna cum laude.  After clerking for the great Judge Hand and for the very capable Justice Reed, he became associated with Debevoise, his professional home for most of his career.  (Luckily, because it’s more and worthy information, his law firm webpage is still “up”—click here.)

(And Arthur?  He attended Harvard University and then, with Robert, Harvard Law School.  He also earned a Harvard Ph.D. in Government, joined the Harvard Law School faculty, and became one of its giants—click here for one memorial and here for one obituary following his death in 2006.)

For more on Robert von Mehren’s accomplished and full life, click here and here.

May he rest in peace.

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What Did/Would Chief Justice Rehnquist Think of Ted Cruz?

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Ted Cruz, after great success as a Harvard Law School student, became a law clerk to two federal judges.  During 1995-1996, Cruz was a clerk to Judge J. Michael Luttig of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.  During 1996-1997, Cruz clerked at the U.S. Supreme Court for the Chief Justice, William H. Rehnquist.

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It’s of course Ouija Board stuff to wonder what Chief Justice Rehnquist would think today about Senator Cruz as he runs for president.  Rehnquist died in September 2005, when Cruz was the appointed Solicitor General of Texas.  He argued cases regularly, skillfully before the Rehnquist Court.  But I think that no one then was imagining Ted Cruz as a serious presidential candidate, or at least not the one that he is now in his speeches, debates and issue positions.

As a starting point, what did Chief Justice Rehnquist think about Ted Cruz as a person, in his clerkship year and thereafter?

Some might have direct knowledge, but that has not been shared.

Some indications might exist on paper or other media, but they have not surfaced.

Some who knew Rehnquist well could venture their educated guesses, but I don’t know that any has.

I knew Chief Justice Rehnquist only a little bit.  I interviewed and interacted with the Chief Justice a couple of times in 2003, when he generously met with me to discuss Justice Robert H. Jackson, whom Rehnquist had served as a Supreme Court law clerk during 1952-1953.

My guess is that the Chief Justice Rehnquist I met would not have thought well of the Ted Cruz now running for president.  Rehnquist in 2003 was too many things that Cruz seems not to be.  Rehnquist was mellow, relaxed and not judgmental.  He was reflective, including about himself as a law clerk and later.  He had some strong views, of course, but he laughed at extreme partisanship and made fun people who demonized others.  He was kindly.

I suspect that Ted Cruz knows that his candidate persona today is not the late-life Rehnquist type (and maybe that he was not a beloved Rehnquist law clerk).  The evidence is Cruz’s understanding of the Chief he does not resemble—Rehnquist was, Cruz wrote in his memoir last year (click here for an excerpt on his Rehnquist clerkship), “very much a Midwesterner.  He was polite, low-key and modest.”

Chief Justice Rehnquist loved to make small bets, including on politics.  I bet that Rehnquist wouldn’t hesitate to vote against Ted Cruz in a 2016 Republican primary.  I think that Rehnquist would agonize a bit about Jeb Bush, and then he’d vote for John Kasich.

Cornelia Groefsema Becomes a D.C. Circuit Law Clerk (1947)

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Judge Cornelia Blanche Groefsema Kennedy, a giant of the federal bench, died last month at age 90 at her Michigan home.

As many have noted, Judge Kennedy was a pioneering woman in the law.  She was born in Detroit in 1923.  Her father was a lawyer and her mother sought to become one.  When Cornelia was only nine, however, her mother, then in her second year of law school, died.

As Cornelia grew up, she more than fulfilled her mother’s aspirations.  Raised by her father and an aunt, Cornelia attended Detroit public schools.  She was a top graduate from Detroit’s Redford High School.  In 1945, she became an honors graduate of the University of Michigan.  In 1947, she earned her law degree at the University of Michigan, the law school that her mother had attended.

Following law school, Cornelia Groefsema—the future Judge Kennedy—broke the first of many professional glass ceilings:  she became the first woman to serve as a law clerk at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit).

Cornelia’s clerkship opportunity developed in part because her sister Margaret also was a legal trailblazer.  She, like Cornelia, had served as an editor of the Michigan Law Review before graduating from Michigan Law School.

In 1945-46, Margaret Groefsema served as a law clerk to U.S. Circuit Judge Thomas F. McAllister of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.  Judge McAllister, whose chambers were located in Grand Rapids, Michigan, was very pleased with Margaret’s work.  In 1947, he sought to hire her sister Cornelia as his law clerk.

Cornelia turned down the offer to clerk for Judge McAllister.  She was, she explained, more interested in clerking in the East.  (I believe that a relationship with a man there was part of the pull.)

Judge McAllister then assisted Cornelia Groefsema in her clerkship hunt.  Through a telephone call to the incumbent law clerk in the chambers of Justice Harold M. Stephens of the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C., Judge McAllister learned that Judge Stephens soon would need a law clerk.  So McAllister wrote to Stephens, explaining his knowledge of Miss Groefsema and recommending her.

A few days later, Cornelia, obviously coordinating moves with Judge McAllister, mailed her letter of application and resume to Judge Stephens.  Soon thereafter, while visiting Washington, she interviewed with the Judge.

In October 1947, Judge Stephens decided to hire Cornelia Groefsema as his law clerk.  She was his sole law clerk, and excellent at the work, for the duration of the Court’s 1947-1948 term.

Some links—

Judge Kennedy will be remembered this Friday at a memorial service at her church.

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