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Sunday, March 27, 2016 10:15:14 PM
Merrick Garland Is a Deft Navigator of Washington’s Legal Circles
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, MATT APUZZO and KATHARINE Q. SEELYEMARCH 26, 2016
Merrick B. Garland, President Obama’s selection for the Supreme Court. He calls himself “an
accidental judge,” because he was once in line for a top Justice Department position.
Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times
[...]
...it became clear over time that Mr. Garland was silently working out his arguments, processing facts and testing alternatives.
Surrounded by overachievers in a city full of people clamoring to be heard, he was waiting until he had something to say.
[...]
“The essence of who you are is who you are at an early stage,” said Abbe D. Lowell, a Washington lawyer who worked alongside Mr. Garland
as a fellow assistant to Mr. Civiletti. “Not only is he book smart, but he’s really able to use all of that intelligence to forge consensus.”
[...]
“I don’t think he was ever viewed in a particular camp,” Mr. Chertoff said. “He was a legal craftsman. He was not an agenda-driven person.”
[...]
Some aides tried to use their access to push ideological agendas with the attorney general.
“That wasn’t Merrick,” Mr. Civiletti recalled in an interview. “He was interested in getting the right answer.”
[...]
Even though he was not skilled, Ms. Coleman, a Republican, loved dancing with him because he “smiled so much.”
In the office, he and the other young assistants were mentored by a colorful figure, Victor H. Kramer, counsel to the attorney general. Mr. Kramer had spent more
than a decade at the corporate law firm Arnold & Porter before quitting to help provide legal services for the poor. He urged lawyers to work in public service.
[...]
...he also found a way to get the best out of people and was quick to give others credit.
Years later, he told interviewers: “I like legal problems. I like learning about legal problems. I like cooperating with others in figuring out legal problems.”
[...]
Rather than have them write long memos for him, as is the custom of many other judges, he insists on doing his own research, for fear that he might miss some nuance or the finer
points of an argument. Then, he said: “We just argue it out. I pick clerks who can say no to me, in a nice way — who can say, ‘That’s wrong, judge, and this is the reason why.’”
[...]
On the bench, he is a tough questioner. “He would often come back from oral arguments and his first question to us would be, ‘Do you think I went too far out there?
Do you think I was too rough?’ ” said one former clerk, Danielle Gray. “We all thought, ‘You could not have been nicer in asking these very tough questions.’”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/us/politics/merrick-garland-obama-supreme-court-nominee.html
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG, MATT APUZZO and KATHARINE Q. SEELYEMARCH 26, 2016
Merrick B. Garland, President Obama’s selection for the Supreme Court. He calls himself “an
accidental judge,” because he was once in line for a top Justice Department position.
Credit Doug Mills/The New York Times
[...]
...it became clear over time that Mr. Garland was silently working out his arguments, processing facts and testing alternatives.
Surrounded by overachievers in a city full of people clamoring to be heard, he was waiting until he had something to say.
[...]
“The essence of who you are is who you are at an early stage,” said Abbe D. Lowell, a Washington lawyer who worked alongside Mr. Garland
as a fellow assistant to Mr. Civiletti. “Not only is he book smart, but he’s really able to use all of that intelligence to forge consensus.”
[...]
“I don’t think he was ever viewed in a particular camp,” Mr. Chertoff said. “He was a legal craftsman. He was not an agenda-driven person.”
[...]
Some aides tried to use their access to push ideological agendas with the attorney general.
“That wasn’t Merrick,” Mr. Civiletti recalled in an interview. “He was interested in getting the right answer.”
[...]
Even though he was not skilled, Ms. Coleman, a Republican, loved dancing with him because he “smiled so much.”
In the office, he and the other young assistants were mentored by a colorful figure, Victor H. Kramer, counsel to the attorney general. Mr. Kramer had spent more
than a decade at the corporate law firm Arnold & Porter before quitting to help provide legal services for the poor. He urged lawyers to work in public service.
[...]
...he also found a way to get the best out of people and was quick to give others credit.
Years later, he told interviewers: “I like legal problems. I like learning about legal problems. I like cooperating with others in figuring out legal problems.”
[...]
Rather than have them write long memos for him, as is the custom of many other judges, he insists on doing his own research, for fear that he might miss some nuance or the finer
points of an argument. Then, he said: “We just argue it out. I pick clerks who can say no to me, in a nice way — who can say, ‘That’s wrong, judge, and this is the reason why.’”
[...]
On the bench, he is a tough questioner. “He would often come back from oral arguments and his first question to us would be, ‘Do you think I went too far out there?
Do you think I was too rough?’ ” said one former clerk, Danielle Gray. “We all thought, ‘You could not have been nicer in asking these very tough questions.’”
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/us/politics/merrick-garland-obama-supreme-court-nominee.html
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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