OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Close This Box!

This seemed to frustrate him even more, and he practically shouted, ?Listen! I?m really being serious! Forget what I told you earlier! Do not copy what I?m doing now!? All of us clerks had trained at Ivy League law schools, where the importance of carrying out original directions is strongly emphasized. ?Listen! I?m really being serious! Forget what I told you earlier! Do not copy what I?m doing now!? we shouted in turn. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that in the confusion the President had broken off his speech and stepped to the back of the platform, where Secret Service agents with drawn guns now surrounded him. Meanwhile, a security helicopter had descended and was hovering threateningly.

Justice Stevens?s career would last many more years, and he would eventually become one of the longest-serving Supreme Court Justices in history. He would write a number of important opinions, and changed some of his views over time?most significantly, those concerning the death penalty. At this defining moment in the Rose Garden, his finely balanced intellect did not fail him, and he came up with a plan to drive the bee out by employing a radical change in temperature, that is, by sitting on one of the many barbecue grills lined up on the lawn?s adjoining banquet area. The grills were already sizzling hot and ready to cook the buffet-style barbecue feast that was scheduled to follow the ceremony.

But the flaw in this idea soon became obvious, for, as he sat, smoke began rising from his robes, until Justice Stevens suddenly burst out with ?Ay, chihuahua!? At once, an echoing ?Ay, chihuahua!? escaped the throats of twenty-six clerks, all of us on our own grills and all by now similarly singed. The Justice then leaped from his perch and ran pell-mell in a circle through the gathering, trailing smoke and a train of equally smoky clerks, until he, and we, plunged behind first into a moatlike trough containing melting ice and bottled beverages at the foot of a twenty-foot-high ice sculpture of the Post Office eagle situated near the end of the lawn. Upon our contact with the cold water, steam went up, along with a loud sssssssssssss that cut through the background noises of the helicopter and the excited crowd.

After my clerkship with Justice Stevens ended, I went to work for Skadden Arps, in the tort division, but I soon began to drift away from the law. As the result of a long period of reflection and self-examination, I decided to change direction and go back to law school, figuring that it would be easier the second time and I wouldn?t really have to study. This proved to be correct; I regraduated from Yale, then attended and graduated from the law schools of Princeton, Harvard, and Brown. As the possessor of five identical law degrees, I saw that my logical next step should be clerking for a Justice of the Supreme Court. I did not apply to Justice Stevens, however, because after the incident in the Rose Garden we could never meet each other?s eyes. Instead I applied to, and was accepted by, Chief Justice Hulk Hogan. Only many years later did I discover that he was not connected with the Supreme Court at all. For this reason, and for many others, I will always be grateful to have known Justice John Paul Stevens, and vice versa. ?