2nd Circuit Judge Calabresi on Former Student and Current Colleague Sotomayor

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LAW TRIBUNE: How long have you known Sonia Sotomayor?

GUIDO CALABRESI: I've known her ever since she was a first-year student in my torts class. She was terrific then. Yesterday, I went back and looked at my exams. My practice is to read the exams name and then write on the exam a one-liner about what the exam was like. It was a wonderful exam, and I wrote, ‘Knows her stuff! Has originality!' That's a wonderful little aside that most people wouldn't know...

LAW TRIBUNE: You're saying she wasn't trying to express a more middle-of-the-road view to please more people, or be more palatable?

CALABRESI: She's never done that, she's just followed the law. And she is also a judge who does not reach out to decide more than what is before her. The word 'activist' is usually misused to attack somebody who disagrees with you...

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202431198132

[elleng]

1. EXCELLENT article; excellent insights.

'Very popular on the court because she listens, convinces and can be convinced -- always by good legal argument. She's changed my mind, not an insignificant number of times.'

'And it works both ways. She listens to people and people listen to her. Often when we've had court meetings, and disagreed on things, there can be some tension. She's the one who regularly arranges for us to go out together with spouses afterwards, and relax and be human beings with each other, and that has been a great help.'

(About the New Haven firefighters case:) 'First, she was not the presiding judge of that case. It's a panel, and the presider is significant in such things. The interesting thing that that panel did was try to decide the particular case before it, without resolving a very, very hard question of law. And that goes to what I just said before. That is the opposite of an activist judge. That issue is one of the hardest issues around.

thought this particular case ... could be dealt with without trying to settle something that's extraordinarily hard. She – and that panel -- was trying to be in the best sense of the word, a minimalist judge. If people say that was activism, they've got it backwards.'

'When she first came on, there were some lawyers who said that about her manner on the bench (that she was brusque.). I started keeping track of what she was saying and what my male colleagues were saying. was identical. There are some lawyers who don't like to be questioned hard by a woman. It's just as simple as that. It's a sign that Sonia will just be herself.'

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2. Kick