Washington – John G. Roberts Jr. complements his legal brainpower and squeaky-clean image with an equally important asset – an ego that friends say he keeps firmly in check.
“A great, self-deprecating sense of humor,” says Patrick Schiltz, a professor at University of St. Thomas School of Law and a friend of Roberts.
“Very easy to get along with,” says Los Angeles lawyer and author Ed Lazarus, an expert on the Supreme Court.
As President Bush announced he was nominating Roberts to be the 109th justice of the Supreme Court, Roberts stood ramrod straight at the president’s side, his lips pursed, his arms behind his back, almost like a soldier standing at ease.
Speaking briefly after the president made his nationally televised announcement, Roberts called the nomination “very humbling” and spoke of his regard for the high court, where he has frequently appeared to argue cases before the justices.
“I always got a lump in my throat whenever I walked up those marble steps to argue a case before the court, and I don’t think it was just from the nerves,” he said.
At age 50, Roberts is a relatively young nominee for the Supreme Court, where eight of the nine justices are over age 65. And yet, his arrival on the federal bench was a long time in coming. In fact, it was the first President Bush who first tapped Roberts for the federal court of appeals.
That first time around, Roberts was never given a hearing by the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The current President Bush tapped him for a second time in 2001, but that nomination died too.
Bush nominated him again in January 2003, and the Senate confirmed him in 2003 on a voice vote without serious opposition.
Roberts is something of a lifelong court insider – he clerked for then-Associate Justice William Rehnquist from 1980 to 1981 and served as principal deputy solicitor general from 1989 to 1993, appearing often before the high court.
“That, more than anything he had in some brief that he signed when he was in the solicitor general’s office, says to me that he is going to be an institutionally committed moderate conservative,” said Emory University law professor David Garrow, an expert on the Supreme Court.
Roberts and his wife, Jane, who is also a lawyer, are the parents of a son and a daughter – 4-year-old Jack and 5-year-old Josie – whom they adopted.
Roberts is well-known in Washington circles and a favorite of conservative lawyers of the Federalist Society. He tries to avoid labeling his judicial approach, however, saying at his 2003 confirmation hearing, “I don’t necessarily think that it’s the best approach to have an all-encompassing philosophy.”
A native of Buffalo, N.Y., Roberts grew up in a small town in Indiana, where he worked summers in a steel mill to help pay his way through college.
From the beginning, he set himself apart – captain of the high school football team, top of his class at Harvard Law School.
Private practice proved lucrative for Roberts, who earned a salary of $1,044,399 from Hogan & Hartson LLP before resigning as a partner in May 2003, according to a financial disclosure report that Roberts filed this year.
Roberts reported a long list of stock holdings, including investments in Pfizer and Procter & Gamble Co., and money-market funds. He also reported a one-eighth interest in a cottage in Knocklong, Limerick, Ireland, which he valued at $15,000 or less.
He reported that his wife drew a salary from Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, but he didn’t disclose the amount. Jane Sullivan Roberts, a graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, is a partner in the firm specializing in transactions involving technology.
Roberts’ nomination to the appellate bench attracted support from both ends of the ideological spectrum. One hundred forty-six members of the D.C. Bar signed a letter urging his confirmation, including officials from the Clinton administration.
The letter stated: “He is one of the very best and most highly respected appellate lawyers in the nation, with a deserved reputation as a brilliant writer and oral advocate.”
