JUDICATURE 11 A friendly award CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS PRESENTS JUSTICE GINSBURG WITH THE HENRY J. FRIENDLY MEDAL AT THE 2018 ALI ANNUAL MEETING t the annual meeting of the CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS American Law Institute (ALI) Good afternoon. Thank you, David. A in May, Chief Justice John G. David, as you all know, is the one who Roberts, Jr., presented the Henry J. got away, having served as a federal judge Friendly medal to his colleague on the for 17 years until Duke Law School lured Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. him in 2007 to become its dean. The warm exchange between two And as he steps down from that role justices offers a welcome example of the [in June], others will no doubt offer due professionalism that characterizes the accolades about what he has done for relationships among the justices and Duke. But I would like to just say how can be so often overlooked. (For another much I appreciate what Duke, under his peek into the relationships among the leadership, has done for the courts and justices, see the “Lastly” column on page the law. And I am grateful, as well, for 80, about the Court’s dining traditions.) the role that David has taken on in lead- David F. Levi, director of the Bolch ing the ALI. Judicial Institute at Duke Law School My happy assignment this after- PICTURED ABOVE, LEFT TO (which publishes Judicature), presided noon is to present The American Law RIGHT: CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN G. ROBERTS, JR.; JUSTICE over the event in his capacity as pres- Institute’s Henry J. Friendly Medal. RUTH BADER GINSBURG; ident of the ALI. Presented here are We all know of the friendship between DAVID F. LEVI. PHOTO comments from the ceremony, courtesy Judge Friendly and David Levi’s father, COURTESY ALI, BY RISDON PHOTOGRAPHY. of the ALI. Attorney General and Chicago Law 4 12 VOL. 102 NO. 3 School Dean Edward Levi. But it turns they persuasively explain, clarify, and out their family connections go back MOST IMPORTANT, mark the path of progress in the law. even further. Almost 60 years since he started I found, in Judge Friendly’s papers, SHE IS A FRIEND writing them, Judge Friendly’s opin- correspondence from 1894 between WHO, LIKE JUDGE ions retain a distinctive power to make Judge Friendly’s mother, Leah, and us better lawyers and better judges. I’ll David’s great-grandfather, Emil Hirsch. FRIENDLY, MAKES just give an example that bears directly According to Judge Friendly, his on the individual who will receive the mother, who had not even a high school ALL OF US BETTER Friendly Medal today. education, was trying to educate herself AT OUR COMMON In 1973, Judge Friendly wrote for about Jewish history. his court in Johnson v. Glick, which She, therefore, wrote directly to CALLING. articulated a standard for when a pris- David’s great-grandfather, who was a oner could bring a Section 1983 claim. distinguished professor of rabbinical“ The opinion occupied just six pages literature at the University of Chicago. of the Federal Reporter, but it became She inquired about Heinrich Graetz’s the leading authority on the subject monumental 19th-century work, the until the Supreme Court stepped in to History of the Jews. provide new guidance in light of its own David’s great-grandfather provided Now this is the rarest of occasions subsequent precedent. a crisp critique of the six-volume work. where Judge Friendly was wrong. I In the meantime, in an accolade only “Graetz’s history is not good. But it is the can attest that one can be Chief Justice this audience could appreciate, Judge best we have. His facts are on the whole without being a big wheel of any kind. Friendly’s opinion garnered thousands trustworthy, but his theories are not.” Judge Friendly had a complete devo- and thousands of Westlaw citations So the tradition in the Levi and tion to the rule of law. He believed that because it was accepted throughout the Friendly families of study, teaching, if you just worked hard enough to apply country as the best statement of the law. mentoring — and intellectual candor maximum intellectual power, and care- In 1984, about a decade after Judge — predates the ALI by more than a fully enough to bring to bear informed Friendly authored Johnson, a rela- quarter of a century. judgment, you would arrive at the best tively new jurist — Judge Ruth Bader Now in my view and that of many answer to even the most difficult legal Ginsburg — tried her hand at applying others, Judge Friendly was the great- questions. He took total pleasure in that the Johnson standard. Apparently at the est American judge never to serve on process. The rigor, intellect, and integ- behest of her colleague Judge Robert the Supreme Court. He ranks pretty rity he deployed as a master craftsman Bork, who had joined her opinion, she high even without that qualification. continue to inspire all of us. sent a copy to Judge Friendly, noting He would have been a luminous justice, Judge Friendly’s contemporaries modestly that she hoped her work but he confided to friends that he would recognized him as the intellectual leader “grasp[ed] correctly” Judge Friendly’s never have wanted to be Chief Justice. of their guild. And over his three decades opinion in Johnson. He wrote that he “would have absolutely on the bench, Judge Friendly illumi- Judge Friendly replied that “[t]here hated . speaking at bar association nated area after area of law with incisive is no doubt in my mind that you . meetings, maintaining contacts with analysis and crystal-clear prose. Lawyers captured precisely what I was endeav- Congress, and being a big wheel in and judges alike still give special weight oring to say in Johnson v. Glick.” He Washington social life.” to Friendly opinions because of how later identified Judge Ginsburg as an JUDICATURE 13 upcoming star. And on that matter, JUSTICE characteristically, he was right. RUTH BADER GINSBURG, Already at that time she had been a RISDON brilliant student at three different Ivy PHOTOGRAPHY. League institutions; the first tenured woman professor at Columbia Law School; head of the Women’s Rights Project at the ACLU, where she fought for the rights not just of women, but of all; and an esteemed circuit judge on the D.C. Circuit. She has now served on the Supreme Court with distinction for 25 years, and we have gotten to know her on a more personal level as: a loving spouse of now-departed Marty, whom we dearly miss; mother to Jane and James; a woman who keeps unusually late work- ing hours; a judge who works quickly, routinely issuing the Court’s first or MY HOPE IS THAT, ONE FINE DAY, second opinion every term, even when the Chief Justice assigns her a difficult OUR CONGRESS WILL RETURN TO THE case to try to avoid having everyone BIPARTISANSHIP THAT PREVAILED FOR else appear slow by comparison; and a cultural icon who knows much about MY NOMINATION IN 1993 . music, nothing about football, and more than is reasonable about jabots. Most important, she is a friend great pleasure to present you the 2018 and was greatly admired for his tower- who, like Judge Friendly, makes all of Henry J. Friendly Medal. ing intellect, also what Michael Boudin us better at our common calling. Like called his immense practicality. Together Judge Friendly, Ruth is equal parts with other Southern District law clerks, I careful scholar and evenhanded jurist.“ JUSTICE GINSBURG sometimes attended Second Circuit argu- And like Judge Friendly, she derives Receiving the Henry J. Friendly Medal ments when Judge Friendly was on the her authority from the strength of her is a huge honor. And receiving it from bench. He didn’t ask many questions, contribution to a conversation, and my Chief is a pleasure beyond measure. but the ones he asked were penetrating. never from its volume. May I tell you of my first impressions In the second year of my clerkship, my Ruth, I am very happy to have the of Judge Friendly. In the Fall of 1959, I husband, Martin Ginsburg, aided in a opportunity to participate in this effort began a clerkship with Judge Edmund L. case argued in the Second Circuit. Judge to increase your public profile. It is Palmieri, seated in the Southern District Friendly was on the panel, so I came humbling to be your colleague and grat- of New York. The new Second Circuit along to observe. It was a complex tax ifying to be your friend. And it is my Judge was appointed the same season case involving corporate bonds. All was 4 14 VOL. 102 NO. 3 going well for Marty’s side until Judge was asked about my affiliation with bill because I had the good fortune to Friendly asked: “Is the bond indenture the American Civil Liberties Union as be alive and a lawyer when society was in the record?” It was, and Marty imme- board member, general counsel, and prepared to accord equal citizenship diately understood that the Judge had co-founder of the ACLU’s Women’s stature to women. Helping to propel zeroed in on the best argument for the Rights Project. In the Senate Judiciary that change was enormously satisfying. government, but one the government Committee, Senator Orrin Hatch was a What is the difference between did not make. Friendly wrote the opin- leading supporter. a bookkeeper in New York City’s ion for a unanimous panel holding for It has not been that way for more garment district and a Supreme Court the government.1 The Supreme Court recent appointees.