Kagan in Montana & Jackson's chambers

Reporting on the 9th Cir. conference in Big Sky, the DJ has Kagan Says High Court Should Act Differently to Restore Confidence.

• U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan told the 9th Circuit Judicial Conference on Thursday that it’s up to the court itself to restore flagging public approval by acting differently. “The way it fosters public confidence is by acting like a court, not just individual people with policy or social preferences that we’re making everybody live with,” Kagan told a packed audience in Big Sky, Montana.
• Kagan said she liked the court’s new way of handling oral arguments. At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the court held what was essentially a conference call, allowing each justice to ask questions one at a time. Justice Clarence Thomas, famous for not asking many questions at oral argument, “was a very active participant” under that format Kagan, however, said she didn’t like that it appeared to make attorney arguments “stilted” and didn’t allow for follow-up questions.
• Justices debated what format to use during the last term, and settled on a compromise solution that Thomas, who Kagan said didn’t like the traditional free-for-all format, and Kagan both liked.
• The future of livestreaming court proceedings is less certain. “I personally would prefer to keep the livestreaming but I only get one vote of nine,” Kagan said.

Law360 has Most Of New Justice's Clerks Come With BigLaw Bonafides

• Three of Justice Jackson's four clerks have worked as associates at BigLaw firms, including Morrison Foerster, Hogan Lovells and Covington & Burling
• but there's also an assistant public defender among them