Who Should Replace Justice Stevens?
An offbeat shortlist.
Updated Saturday, April 10, 2010, at 7:45 PM
Jeffrey Fisher
In the spirit of an off-beat list, my vote goes to 40-year-old Jeffrey Fisher, co-director of Stanford Law School's Supreme Court litigation clinic. He has the temperament, track record, consensus-building skills, and life expectancy to make him a formidable nominee. Wildly accomplished for his years, Fisher is already considered one of the most influential lawyers in the country. Charmingly, he also served as a clerk for Justice Stevens. As a litigator, Fisher has compiled an astonishing string of high court victories, in part because of his impressive ability to persuade Justice Scalia to side with criminal defendants. That skill alone would make him a formidable presence on the court. Moreover, having never been a judge, (before joining the Stanford faculty, Fisher worked at the well-regarded law firm of Davis-Wright Tremaine), his paper trail is mostly academic. The big strike against him is age. Then again, in 1811, James Madison swore in Associate Justice Joseph Story. His age at the time: 32.
—David Feige is a lawyer and creator of the TNT series Raising the Bar as well as the former trial chief of the Bronx Defenders.
Slate V: Justice Stevens announces his retirement
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Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor and writes about law, family, and kids. Her forthcoming book, Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Empathy and Character. Find her at emilybazelon@gmail.com or on Facebook or Twitter.
Dahlia Lithwick writes about the courts and the law for Slate.