- For the first time the configuration
of the Court you're on has changed,
that you have moved out of the junior seat
and you have a new colleague.
What does that feel like to sort of shift the status quo
of how things have been for a while and have them change.
- Well, can I first answer that question
at the most prosaic level
because it means
that I don't have certain responsibilities.
[laughter]
Because there are certain jobs
that are only the junior justice's.
So what are they?
The first is you have to take notes in conference
so that you can then pass on all the decisions that we...
Because nobody comes in the conference room
other than the nine Justices.
Nobody from the clerk's office, none of the Justice's
personal clerks, nobody from any
of the offices around the building.
But they all have to know what we've done
so they can report it to the world,
so that they can do all the various
administrative things that need doing.
So it's the job of the junior Justice to take good notes
and to be able to report to everybody
what it is that we've done.
And literally, at the end of conference,
everybody gets up and leaves except the junior Justice
and the junior Justice stays behind and all the Justices
chairs are then taken up by people in the Clerk's Office
and around the building who need to have this information.
So that's the first thing.
That's actually the most substantive thing
that the junior Justice has to do, believe it or not.
The second that thing that the junior Justice
has to do is open the door.
[laughter]
Now you wouldn't think that this
would be an assigned task, right?
- Life tenure required. [laughs] - Exactly.
But, as I said, there are only the nine of us in there
and occasionally, somebody has to
give us something, like suppose an important
phone call has come in, or, more often,
suppose somebody left their glasses
in their chambers...
[laughter]
Or left their coffee, or just can't do without
some particular file, and so they'll make a call
from the conference room,
and somebody will come and knock on the door,
and the door is very-- you'd think it's just a door,
but, no, it has to be two doors.
It's like a double door with a few feet in between
so that really nobody can enter the inner sanctum.
And the person who's bringing the cup of coffee,
or whatever, knock on one door, you'll get up,
you open the other door, take the
cup of coffee, deliver it to your colleague.
[laughter]
This is, can I tell you how seriously people
feel this is the job of the junior Justice?
[laughter]
This is the best way I can describe it to you.
Earlier this year, I tore something in my foot,
and I was walking around with one of these boots,
you know, and I was walking, but I wasn't walking easily
because I was like clumping along with one of these
big plastic thingamajigs on your foot.
And still, somebody would knock on the door,
and everybody would just look at me, you know?
[laughter]
So now, so now it's not my job anymore,
but still, after seven years, now,
so the last month, somebody will knock on the door
and I go, like this, you know?
It's become a kind of conference joke,
is like, how much Elena flinches, right?
[laughter]
Alright, the third thing that the junior justice has to do
is to be on the cafeteria committee.
Now, this truly is a form of hazing,
alright.
[laughter]
This is like, you are the person who,
one of your colleagues says there's too much salt in the
soup, and you're supposed to report that to the cafeteria.
[laughter]
And then once a month or so you go to cafeteria meetings,
and you think you've just been confirmed
to the United States Supreme Court--
[laughter]
And you think you're hot stuff, right?
And I think that this is the reason why they do this.
You think you're hot stuff, and they put your on
this cafeteria committee, and you are sitting there,
and you are having a conversation about what happened
to the good recipe for chocolate chip cookies.
[laughter]
So, I don't have to do that anymore either, yeah.