Minnesota Lawyer Blog

“There’s not much that entices about the job. There’s no money in it, no privacy, no big houses, and from an ego standpoint, it does nothing for me.”

-- Justice Clarence Thomas on serving on the U.S. Supreme Court (from the WSJ Law Blog)

I too watched Clarence Thomas on 60 Minutes and found him more impressive than I expected. However, I was surprised that all these years later and having enjoyed a career not available to most people, he still has to indulge in an ad hominem attack on Anita Hill. She has responded with an editorial in the New York Times that says she stands by her testimony. Its title? "The Smear This Time"

The Wall Street Journal law blog picked it up, and what is really sad was the level of discourse in some blogger's comments. Speaking of ad hominem attacks, one blogger wonders if Hill is fun on a date. Speaking also of sexism, several comment on how "hot" she is. Come on, people.

Nothing much has changed since I went to see Hill speak at Hamline University shortly after the Thomas hearings. Young men lined up along the doorway to offer the (mostly women) attendees cans of Coke, and one seemed genuinely surprised when I called him a name I can't use here. (I too was guilty of an ad hominem attack). I thanked Hill for coming forward, and I stand by that now. Perhaps her allegations shouldn't have taken center stage they way they did, but she had written them in a private letter to the Judiciary Committee, not in a book for which she was paid a $1.5 million advance. But as Hill says in her op-ed piece, reopening the smear campaign against her will not encourage future objects of sexual harassment to vindicate their rights.

One of the interesting moments of Justice Clarence Thomas' interview on "6o Minutes" last night (see post below for more on the interview) came when the justice talked about the difficulty he had finding a job after receiving his J.D. in 1974. Despite having gone to an ivy-league law school (Yale), Thomas could not find a Big Firm willing to hire him.

In debt and jobless, the future justice came to view his law degree as not being worth 15 cents. In fact, to this day he keeps the degree in storage with a 15-cent price tag on the frame. (It bears mentioning that Thomas came to be of the view that affirmative action programs had diluted the value of his degree in the eyes of Big Firm employers.) Thomas did, of course , eventually land a job, but it wasn't a position at a Big Firm. Instead, Thomas was hired as an assistant attorney general in Missouri at $10,000 a year.

Thomas' experience raises several issues. One we have blogged about here before -- the problems more and more law students are facing in servicing their ever-growing debt loads when, for whatever reason, they don't wind up in a lucrative job at a Big Firm. (See "Are lawyers job prospects dimming?") It's a very important issue facing the profession and one that will be explored more fully in a future edition of Minnesota Lawyer.

Much has been said of the silence of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on the bench. Last term he did not utter a word during oral arguments (see "Ever-taciturn Thomas is in a quiet spell.") So I was eager to see what the quiet justice would say when given the chance on an exclusive interview on CBS' "60 Minutes."

I actually thought the supremely silent justice did very well. He came across as intelligent and well-spoken. One can certainly disagree with Thomas' personal, political and legal views, but there is apparently much more to the man than the caricature that has been generally presented. Given the eloquence he showed in the interview, it's a shame that Thomas does not speak up more often. Silence is not always golden.