Chief Justice Visits Missoula

He wore a nice red tie. He had his hair parted. He made a mistake once by not reading the entire text of a rule of Civil Procedure. He compared lawyers to firefighters and discussed at length the Mann Gulch fire. He removed the limitations of past cases, but none of us were prepared for that and therefore stuck to the mundane.

The most interesting response all morning was to a young lady questioning the role of Chief Justice Roberts' heart in making rulings. She wandered if he took into account people's position in the case and how a ruling might affect them. The Chief Justice responded (basically) he couldn't worry about things like that; his job was simply to rule on the law, analytically and steadfastly. I thought this response interesting in our Common Law system (markedly different than the civil codes of Continental Europe). Justice O'Conner was frequently criticized for her working an opinion and interpretation to see justice was done (and thereby creating 'bad law'). I am happy to report there are no worries of the Chief Justice taking that tact.

I only had one interaction with him. I asked him if he was going to drink his coke as he was leaving (I was sitting near the drink table). He said he hadn't thought about, but he guess he might. I informed he needed to decide quickly lest I repo it. Not sure if he got the humor or not.

Anyhow, the Student Question time far exceeded the lecture he brought to the community later in the afternoon. Mostly I think he just wanted to go fishing and therefore came to our humble law school. It will be interesting to see if he shifts to the right or to the left over the next few years, I'm guessing (and hoping) he rediscovers his heart.