In celebration of Women’s History Month, Foley & Lardner hosted a firmwide virtual program on March 14 featuring U.S. Supreme Court expert and UC Berkeley law professorAmanda Tyler. She is the author, with Ruth Bader Ginsburg (RBG), ofJustice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue: A Life’s Work Fighting for a More Perfect Unionand served as one of Justice Ginsburg’s clerks at the Supreme Court.
“One of the biggest lessons RBG taught me is that if we can find common ground,…then we can have a very robust and also respectful debate…and remain friends,” Professor Tyler said. “When I think of the idea of finding common ground,” she continued, “I always come back to stories in the law and related area of politics.”
She gave the example of the Massachusetts delegates to the Constitutional Convention, who voted against ratification but committed to sowing the seeds of union and peace among their constituents. She noted the relationship of President Ronald Reagan and former House speaker Tip O’Neill, who had deep disagreements on the issues but bonded over a commitment to getting things done. And — as the centerpiece of the program — she shared anecdotes about RBG’s friendship with Justice Antonin Scalia.
“If we study the relationship of RBG and Scalia, we can learn a great deal about how to find common ground even in the face of very aggressive disagreement.”
In Professor Tyler’s telling, Scalia and RBG had huge affection for each other but disagreed on just about everything when they went to work. He was famous for being an originalist when applying the Constitution, while she read it through the lens of modern circumstances. They landed on opposite sides on countless blockbuster cases before the Court, but they respected each other’s abilities. In one opinion penned by RBG where Scalia was the only dissent, she said ‘the final draft was ever so much better than my first, second, and at least a dozen drafts more thanks to Scalia’s searing, attention grabbing dissent.’
“So how did RBG and Scalia come to have such a friendship,” Professor Tyler asked. “By building on common ground.” Both grew up in New York as immigrants and outsiders, they shared a love of food and opera, and they bonded over their appreciation for each other’s good humor and sharp intellect. “Most fundamentally, they both loved this country and the Constitution deeply and believed in our great democratic experiment.”
RBG’s devotion to the principles of civil discourse and respectful debate is a lesson we can use in our legal practice and day-to-day interactions, noted partner Michele Simkin, senior chair of Foley’s National Women’s Network, which presented this Women’s History Month program.
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