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Judge Garland with his clerks and their children, aka Judge Garland’s “grand clerks”

Chief Judge Merrick Garland: The Public Servant

In his professional life, Chief Judge Merrick Garland has been a lot of things:

The prosecutor who brought Timothy McVeigh and the Unabomber to justice.

The Chief Judge of the nation’s most important appellate court.

The Supreme Court nominee with the most federal judicial experience of any nominee in history.

But every responsibility he holds reflects the one professional role he has always valued most: The public servant.

Throughout his career, Chief Judge Garland has dedicated his time and legal expertise to helping others who could not afford the representation they deserve under the law. As he said earlier this year:

“Without legal assistance, poor individuals and families have no real access to justice. Without access to justice, the promise of equal justice rings hollow.”

See what he had to say about it in the official questionnaire he sent up to the Senate this week:

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Few people are better positioned to speak about Judge Garland’s commitment to the rule of law and his dedication to advancing equal justice under the law more than the clerks that have worked for him over the years.

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Judge Garland with his clerks

Several of them took some time to reflect on who Merrick Garland is as a federal judge and how his dedication to public service has shaped their own lives as lawyers. Here’s what clerks Eric Berger, Kendall Turner, Josh Segal, Previn Warren, and Jessica Ring Amunson have to say about their former boss:

What do you remember most about Judge Garland?

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Judge Garland’s former clerk Jessica Ring Amunson

Jessica Ring Amunson: I love to watch Judge Garland at the brunch that he and his family host every year at their home for the Judge’s clerks and “grandclerks” (the children of his clerks).

The kids are always a little bit in awe of the person their parents refer to simply as “the Judge.” In fact, I can remember one year as we were on our way to the brunch, my young son asked nervously if “the Judge” would be wearing a white wig and carrying a gavel. But Judge Garland quickly puts the kids at ease, getting right down on the floor to play with them and even putting together a scavenger hunt for them in the backyard.

It is a testament to his character that Judge Garland is just as comfortable talking with a five-year-old about toy trucks as he is talking with his clerks about constitutional law.

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Judge Garland with his clerks and their children, aka Judge Garland’s “grand clerks”

Previn Warren: Whenever the Judge’s daughters called — no matter what he was in the middle of doing — he would pick up the phone and talk to them. He could be in the middle of a complex, arcane, dense analysis of the most intricate legal issues — if Becky or Jessie called, the Judge could switch gears immediately and be Chief Dad, ready to talk about college or career decisions, boys, Rihanna, whatever.

People have commented endlessly about the Judge’s brilliance, his fairness, and his long history of accomplishments, but most people don’t realize that he has been able to balance all that while being an incredibly warm and caring father. I started my clerkship just a month after my first son was born and I was always struck by the Judge’s ability to so expertly balance his work and family life. That is a rare quality in someone of his stature and it’s representative of who he is as a person, not just a jurist.

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Judge Garland’s former clerk Josh Segal

Josh Segal: I’d been working closely with Judge Garland on an opinion that had gone through a number of drafts, and we were nearing the finish line.

We talked through potential ways of handling one particularly difficult legal issue, and the Judge stopped and asked: “Are we coming out the right way on this one?”

To me, that interaction conveyed a remarkable willingness on the Judge’s part to question his own prior conclusions, and a remarkable eagerness to involve others in that process. And it’s an approach that I’ve often felt myself returning to in my own career.

What did he teach you about pro bono service?

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Judge Garland’s former clerk Previn Warren

Previn Warren: I was always struck by the particular care with which he reviewed the submissions of pro se litigants. The Judge felt that his role was to be as neutral and fair as possible, which meant doing his best to understand the issues — even if they were presented in a rough and untutored way. When you review hundreds of briefs a year, it is easy to discount the ones that are riddled with spelling errors and presented in confusing prose. Judge Garland resisted that impulse at every turn.

In other words, he treated every party with dignity and respect, completely irrespective of who they were, where they came from, or what resources they had behind them. And he was consistent in doing so.

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Judge Garland with Kendall Turner (top right) and former clerks

Kendall Turner: My work with Judge Garland made me realize that, no matter how busy one is, it is important to make time to help those less fortunate. I tutored at the same public elementary school as him because I figured that, if he had time to volunteer, so did I. In my current job, I devote a substantial amount of time to pro bono work for the same reason.

Eric Berger: Judge Garland had worked for many years in the Department of Justice. Though he never talked about this, we all knew that he could have made far more money had he remained a partner in a private law firm. But his years in the Justice Department meant a great deal to him, and he spoke often about his experience serving his country there.

After my clerkship, I took a job at the Washington, D.C. office of Jenner & Block. I selected Jenner in large part because of its great commitment to pro bono work, and that decision was certainly influenced by Judge Garland’s example. And while at Jenner, I was fortunate to work on a number of pro bono cases involving issues such as the detention of foreign nationals at Guantanamo Bay, lethal injection, and prisoners’ rights, including a case in which a prisoner suffered from a botched operation.

What kind of Supreme Court Justice would Judge Garland be?

Kendall Turner: The American people and Senate already know Judge Garland is smart and qualified. I want them to know that he is incredibly kind. I’ve had a lot of great bosses in my life, but Judge Garland taught me the most about how to think, how to write, and how to be a good person all the while.

Josh Segal: The Judge takes a deeply respectful approach to disagreement — not just with other judges, but with litigants as well. Particularly after a spirited round of questioning at oral argument, he would ask his clerks whether he had treated counsel kindly, fairly, and respectfully. (Although we wouldn’t have hesitated to say no, the answer was always yes.)

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Judge Garland’s former clerk Eric Berger

Eric Berger: Judge Garland is the epitome of a careful, fair, non-partisan judge. He never decides a case based on the identity of the parties or the politics surrounding a case. Instead, he impartially applies the law to the facts.

Judge Garland is, of course, exceptionally brilliant, hardworking, and meticulous, and all those qualities distinguish him as one of the greatest jurists of the past century. But it is Judge Garland’s non-ideological approach to judging that I believe sets him apart.

To learn more about Chief Judge Merrick Garland, and where we are in the nomination process, check out: www.whitehouse.gov/SCOTUS.

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