Prominent Colorado Democrat Tom Strickland was on his way to Mark Knopfler’s concert at Red Rocks Tuesday evening when he heard that John G. Roberts Jr., his former partner at the prestigious law firm Hogan & Hartson, had been nominated to the Supreme Court.
“John helped recruit me to Hogan & Hartson,” said Strickland, who joined the Washington-based firm in early 2003, just before Roberts joined the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. “Part of my decision to join (Hogan & Hartson) was because of people of John’s talent and skill.”
Strickland, a two-time U.S. Senate candidate and now managing partner of Hogan & Hartson’s Denver office, acknowledged that Roberts, a Republican, “is of a different affiliation and political orientation,” yet “is superbly qualified and a gifted lawyer.”
“I see the world differently than John on a number of issues, but he is widely hailed for his intellect, integrity and talent,” Strickland said. “If you set aside partisan filters, you have to acknowledge that this is a person of superb qualifications to serve on the highest court.”
Roberts had argued many cases before the Supreme Court and was “widely viewed as one of the top appellate lawyers” in the nation, Strickland said. “The president has done well to go to the top cadre.”
“Were I in the U.S. Senate, I would be inclined to be very favorably disposed to confirmation,” Strickland said, adding that, given the opportunity, he’d tell Colorado’s Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar that Roberts is a “first-rate” candidate for the court.
Before joining Hogan & Hartson in 2003, Strickland lost bids for the U.S. Senate from Colorado in 1996 and 2002.
Jonathan Franklin, a Hogan & Hartson partner in Washington, said he had worked closely with Roberts for about 10 years before his colleague joined the appeals court.
“He is the most brilliant lawyer I ever had the pleasure of working with,” said Franklin, who worked with Roberts in the law firm’s appellate and Supreme Court practice. “He has a phenomenal intellect and is an extremely thoughtful and judicious person.”
On the issue of judicial temperament, Roberts “is the model of what you would expect a judge to be,” Franklin added. “I think he would make a tremendous justice on the Supreme Court.”
“He has many friends on both sides of the political aisle and that is a testament to the kind of person he is,” said Franklin, who earlier signed a letter of support for Roberts’ confirmation by the Senate to the appeals court.
“If you know him personally, you’d know that he’s a very funny person who would normally open a speech with a really great joke,” Franklin added, noting that Roberts did not do so when he spoke after the president made the nomination announcement.
Ed Aro, a partner in Hogan & Hartson’s Denver office, worked with Roberts on a couple of cases for the law firm.
Aro described his former colleague as “brilliant, very experienced and a disciplined thinker.”
“John is widely thought of as a traditionalist with respect to the way he views the role of the courts,” Aro said. “But nothing in my experience with John suggested that he is a dogmatic thinker or political jurist.”
Staff writer Jeffrey Leib can be reached at 303-820-1645 or jleib@denverpost.com.
