The Supreme Court justice memoir, so lucrative for its authors, tends to be a less than illuminating genre. Justice Neil Gorsuch’s A Republic, If You Can Keep It reiterated the case for originalism and attempted to illustrate why he was a worthy successor to Justice Antonin Scalia. Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Listening to the Law recited high school civics lessons. And in Lovely One, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson described her family history and life in detail.

The promise of a justice telling his or her life story is that it will help us further understand the jurisprudence of the person who is shaping the path of the law. But, truth be told, each of these books does little more than buff the public image of the judge presented at their hearings.     

Hence, the pleasant surprises in reading Justice Anthony Kennedy’s memoir, Life, Law & Liberty, published last fall and promoted by Kennedy in an interview this year. Unlike so many other judicial memoirs, the retired justice provides a revealing portrait of the person who wore the robe. Just as surprising is the revelation that Kennedy loves literature – which, in his words, not only “document[s] human experience but also” seeks “to edify it” – and gracefully incorporates literary references throughout the text.

During oral argument in January on an Idaho law barring transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports, Justice Sonia Sotomayor briefly reflected on the spotlight that comes with being involved in a Supreme Court case, noting that having your name on a brief draws attention to you not only as a litigant, but as a person.

But some parties before the court have a spotlight on them well before the justices view their name on a filing. Among the petitions for review awaiting the justices’ attention this spring, there are at least four that involve well-known petitioners or “friends of the court,” including sports figures, rappers, and two of the country’s most famous magicians.

Clear Statements is a recurring series by Abbe R. Gluck on civil litigation and the modern regulatory and statutory state.

Rumors of the textualist triumph over legislative history have been greatly exaggerated.

A debate has raged among lawyers and judges for decades about the changes the Supreme Court’s textualists have wrought in statutory interpretation. One of textualism’s key moves has been to argue that congressional intent is inscrutable in a 535-member body and so congressional materials – especially legislative history, such as floor statements and committee reports from the enactment process – should not be considered, instead of an approach focused only on the words actually enacted. Critics have responded that interpreting statutory text divorced from the purpose or history of a statute’s enactment actually enlarges, not cabins, judicial discretion and does not give sufficient respect to Congress’ collective intentions or work-product.

Courtly Observations is a recurring series by Erwin Chemerinsky that focuses on what the Supreme Court’s decisions will mean for the law, for lawyers and lower courts, and for people’s lives.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Chiles v. Salazar, essentially declaring unconstitutional the Colorado law prohibiting talk therapy to attempt to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity, continues a pattern of inconsistent decisions concerning the ability of the government to regulate speech by professionals. Although it is an 8-1 decision, if followed, it could put in danger the countless ways in which the government regulates this form of speech.

Updated on April 9 at 11:41 a.m.

The Supreme Court on Thursday declined to block Ohio officials from removing Sam Ronan, who was running as a Republican for the state’s 15th congressional district, from Ohio’s Republican primary election ballot.

Lawyers for Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, as well as county election officials, had urged the court on Wednesday to let them go ahead with a ballot that does not Ronan. Ohio Solicitor General Mathura Sridharan, representing LaRose, told the justices that Ronan faced “an all-but-insurmountable obstacle” to obtaining relief, because he is seeking “an extraordinary, first-in-time injunction reinstating his candidacy in an ongoing election.”