{"id":23449,"date":"2014-10-18T14:55:29","date_gmt":"2014-10-18T19:55:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=23449"},"modified":"2014-10-18T15:15:53","modified_gmt":"2014-10-18T20:15:53","slug":"justice-ginsburg-on-empowering-oral-argument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2014\/10\/justice-ginsburg-on-empowering-oral-argument\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice Ginsburg on Empowering Oral Argument"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Justice<\/a>An interview with Justice Ginsburg<\/a> appears in the October issue of Elle magazine.\u00a0 In the article, Justice Ginsburg describes her first oral argument before the United States Supreme Court.\u00a0 Any advocate could relate to her story:<\/p>\n

I had, I think, 12 minutes, or something like that, of argument.\u00a0 I was very nervous.\u00a0 In those days, the court sat from 10 to 12, and 1 to 3.\u00a0 It was an afternoon argument.\u00a0 I didn’t dare eat lunch.\u00a0 There were many butterflies in my stomach.\u00a0 I had a very well-prepared opening sentence I had memorized.\u00a0 Looking at them, I thought, I’m talking to the most important court in the land, and they have to listen to me and that’s my captive audience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Justice Ginsburg argued on behalf of Sharon Frontiero in Frontiero v. Richardson<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0In that case\u00a0the Court held that the United States military could not differentiate on the basis of gender in how\u00a0it provides benefits\u00a0to service members’ families.<\/p>\n

In the interview, Justice Ginsburg\u00a0recounts that as she spoke before the Court during oral argument her confidence grew:<\/p>\n

I felt a sense of empowerment because I knew so much more about the case, the issue, than they did.\u00a0 So I relied on myself as kind of a teacher to get them to think about gender.<\/p>\n

 <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

Her moment of rising confidence, came, without question, from deep preparation.\u00a0 There is so much I like about her description in these two sentences.\u00a0 For one, nothing compares to a successful oral argument for\u00a0the feeling of empowerment Justice Ginsburg describes.\u00a0\u00a0For another, Justice Ginsburg understood the connection between\u00a0an advocate and\u00a0a judge when she\u00a0called herself a teacher.\u00a0 Judges are not some sort of all-knowing, all-powerful Wizards of Oz; they must be taught the argument, through logic, precedent, and storytelling.\u00a0 Justice Ginsburg describes her approach to connect with the justices on an emotional level in the Frontiero<\/em> argument:<\/p>\n

[M]ost men of that age, they could understand race discrimination, but sex discrimination?\u00a0 They thought of themselves as good fathers and good husbands, and if women are treated differently, the different treatment is benignly in women’s favor.\u00a0 To get them to understand that this supposed pedestal was all too often a cage for women–that was my mission in all the cases in the ’70s.\u00a0 To get them to understand that these so-called protections for women were limiting their opportunities.\u00a0 I try to have them think what they would like the world to be like for their daughters and granddaughters.\u00a0 I think it makes a big difference if someone has a close relationship with a girl growing up.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A good advocate sees a case as a story of the client and the other side, but also understands how the judge and advocates fit into that story.\u00a0 I have heard more than one good advocate, and\u00a0scholar of advocacy<\/a>,\u00a0say that the key to winning a case is to make the judge or the jury the hero in the story of the case.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An interview with Justice Ginsburg appears in the October issue of Elle magazine.\u00a0 In the article, Justice Ginsburg describes her first oral argument before the United States Supreme Court.\u00a0 Any advocate could relate to her story: I had, I think, 12 minutes, or something like that, of argument.\u00a0 I was very nervous.\u00a0 In those days, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[68,64,36,122,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-judges-judicial-process","category-legal-history","category-legal-practice","category-public","category-us-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}