Five Opinions That Show Justice Stevens’s Greatness
He did his own work and was proud of it.
He was also a great prose stylist.
Photographer: J. Scott Applewhite/PoolI first met Justice John Paul Stevens in 1979, when he interviewed me for a clerkship. I didn’t get the job, but I did get to partake of his wisdom. He repeated the words of former Justice Louis Brandeis, who, when asked what made the Supreme Court different from other branches of government, famously replied, “We do our own work.” In particular, Stevens believed justices should always write their own opinions. That was why he hired fewer law clerks each term than the other justices: to help him resist the temptation to have others do his work for him.
Given this strongly held view, I thought I might commemorate the career of the great justice, who died Tuesday at the age of 99, by briefly discussing five of his majority opinions. I’ve selected five that I suspect few readers, even those who are lawyers, will be familiar with — but all five carry lessons for today.