WASHINGTON-
The Snyders had enough people out to the Supreme Court Monday to field a baseball team. But the nine people, lawyers all, realized a legal dream team vision instead by being admitted to practice law there. Chief Justice John Roberts had just one question.
“Nobody wanted to be a doctor?” Roberts asked, to laughter, after the names of the nine members of the Snyder family from New York state were read aloud during the regular Monday morning session of the court.
Donald and Mary Theresa Snyder of West Winfield, N.Y., said they had an inkling their children as youngsters had what it took to become attorneys. When one of the kids would get in trouble with mom and dad, the siblings would jump to the defense of the one facing punishment.
“They advocated for themselves,” Donald Snyder said in a brief interview after the justices admitted the family, making all nine eligible to argue cases in the Supreme Court.
Following the ceremony, the famliy patriarch said it was “always a dream that we would all be admitted together.”
The parents became lawyers in 1966 after graduating from Albany Law School at Union University. As each child was born, Snyder put off seeking admission to the Supreme Court bar a little longer, wanting to see whether the children would follow in his footsteps.
Recently, daughter Elizabeth rounded up all the documents needed to support the family members’ applications to the high court, no small chore.
Other members of the Snyder family who joined the Supreme Court bar: daughter Graceanne Snyder and her husband, Patrick Quinn; daughter Mary Snyder Radel and her husband, Patrick Radel; son John; and Donald Snyder’s brother, Gerard.
