We sat down with two constitutional law experts—get their take on why this field matters.
Michael Gerhardt is the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor in Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the only legal scholar to participate in the confirmation hearings for at least five of the eight current Supreme Court Justices and has advised Senators about the ongoing confirmation process to replace Justice Scalia. He also regularly advises Congress about other issues. Nareissa Smith has taught constitutional law for ten years, most recently at North Carolina Central University. Her research focused on how the Constitution can be used to address everyday problems.
We also asked Gerhardt and Smith to give advice to TIPsters who dream becoming a constitutional lawyer or Supreme Court justice—or who just think they are interested in this field. Here’s what they said:
Professor Gerhardt
Studying a lot of different things is going to be very important, because law is really based on and is derived from all these other things. Understanding history, science, even English or different languages: they’re all useful for being able to understand how we make sense of texts, and whether we want to deal with texts all the time. How we understand rules and what makes up a good rule or a bad rule—those kinds of things are all going to depend on your studying things beyond law, developing your own sense of ethics and your own values.
Beyond that, doing a lot of writing and not being afraid to write is really helpful to somebody that has an interest in being a lawyer or a judge, because lawyers and judges write all the time. The written expression of an idea is absolutely fundamental. We’ve been talking about the Supreme Court of the United States. Its most important pronouncements are made in writing, and so we’ve got to be able to understand the written word, but also how we put it together, what makes for a good written statement or not. Some of the fundamentals that people are studying now are going to be critical, and I’ve heard Supreme Court justices talk sometimes about what they think the best thing to study, and one of the most common answers people give is the history of literature, because that’s all about reading text. It’s about refining your critical reading skills, and I think that’s a fundamental to being a good lawyer—or, for that matter, being a successful person in life.
Professor Smith
Reading is really the most important tool to succeed in law school. Law school is really about reading, reading, reading. You’re going to read tons cases on all sorts of subjects. Some of them will be interesting and some of them won’t, but as you read them you’re going to have to read for comprehension. You’re going to have to read for understanding, and so reading a lot is going to help you. Also writing. In our popular culture, we think of lawyers in the courtroom saying, “I object,” and things like that, but most of a lawyer’s time is spent writing documents back and forth to their opposing counsel or to the judge. Really, your writing skills are something that you’d want to consider. Are you a good writer? Those little things that a lot of people don’t give much credence to anymore like the rules of grammar and punctuation—in the law, those are still pretty important.
In terms of your college preparation, some people would say, major in English, major in political science, major in history. I say major in whatever you want to and do well at that. If you have an eye towards going to law school, just make sure that whatever major you choose is going to give you an opportunity to write and think and analyze. Make sure that you’re developing those reading and writing skills, that you’re reading difficult, complex material, that you’re analyzing that material and that you have an opportunity to think. Math and engineering can be good for the analytical piece but they might not give you that writing piece.