State High Court Judges Reflect on Their 'Dream Careers'

In February 2024, the Brennan Center for Justice, State Court Report, and the NYU Law Review hosted a symposium dedicated to state constitutional law. Several state supreme court justices who participated sat down for interviews with State Court Report. Among the questions we asked them was, “When you were younger, what was your dream career?”

The answers were inspiring, illuminating, and surprising. Many of the state high court justices didn’t expect to become lawyers at all. Instead, they had planned to be teachers, filmmakers, doctors, or engineers. One dreamt of becoming a garbageman. Yet they all found their way to the highest echelons of the bench, deciding cases that impact the daily lives of countless Americans — on issues like abortion, voting rights, environmental justice, and much more.

Former Florida Supreme Court Chief Justice Barbara Pariente: I was born during a time when women did not hold professional positions for the most part, other than as a teacher, which is a wonderful occupation but was not what I wanted to pursue. I was a communications major in college and had hoped to pursue a career in educational broadcasting or documentary filmmaking. But I learned in my third year about legal services for the poor and that sparked my interest in the law as a way to level the playing field-equal justice for all. It felt like a way to level the playing field, and that was my initial interest in going to law school and becoming a trial lawyer. I never imagined a career as a judge.

Former Ohio Supreme Court Justice Maureen O’Connor: I started out in high school and college thinking that I was going to be a doctor. I was pre-med, and it turned out I didn’t like chemistry! I graduated with a BA in American history and minors in English and sociology. And then I went to graduate school to pursue a master’s in teaching. After student teaching, I realized I did not like children well enough to spend the rest of my career teaching them. Thousands of children have benefited from that decision.

Eventually, I decided to go to law school. It was a great experience. By the time I had graduated from law school, I had my first child, and then my second the day after I graduated.

I set up an office in my home and started getting a lot of business from local businesspeople. I put my name on the list for appointments for indigent representation. I was really busy. I enjoyed it an awful lot and envisioned that is what I would keep doing.

Then I got a call from the magistrate of probate court asking if I would consider filling a vacancy there. I hadn’t thought of myself as being a magistrate in probate court, but being a trial lawyer is an erratic schedule, and I had two little kids. I have a “let’s try it on, see if it fits” theory, so I tried it.

North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Anita Earls: I wanted to be a lawyer from a young age, probably before I knew entirely what it meant. I didn’t come from a family that had any lawyers. Neither of my parents was able to get a four-year degree. My father is Black, and where he grew up in Missouri there was no four-year institution that would admit African Americans, so he got a two-year degree. But for both of my parents, education was key. They made the sacrifices necessary for me to get a degree and then go to a professional school. I settled on wanting to be a lawyer early because I wanted to break down the barriers that I saw facing my family.

California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin H. Liu: When I was younger, I thought I was going to be a doctor. So I didn’t have a dream legal career. Most everything about my career has been a series of unplanned evolutions. Even becoming a lawyer was something unfamiliar because I didn’t know any lawyers. The first lawyer I was ever exposed to was my member of Congress. When I was in high school, I had the honor of serving as a page in the House of Representatives, and that was my first introduction to politics, law, and public affairs. That really opened my eyes. But still, all the way through college I was pre-med. Then a series of mentors said, “Well, it looks like what you’re really interested in are these important issues of social justice and civil rights.” That steered me gradually towards law.

During law school I thought I was going to go back to Capitol Hill or work at a think tank or something like that. I had no idea I was going to become a professor. But some of my professors took me under their wing, and said, “You can do this!” I became a professor at UC Berkeley, which I was happy to do for eight years. Then people started suggesting that I consider becoming a judge, and the rest is history.

So, I did not have a plan. I would say to students, it all looks very tidy when you look at someone’s resume backwards. But living it forwards, it’s a series of “luck meets opportunity meets preparation.” Just being open to the possibilities is really important. 

Former Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice Wallace B. Jefferson: I achieved my dream career. It was to work in the appellate field. My first job out of law school was working in the appellate section of about a 100-person law firm in San Antonio, handling appeals in state and federal court. That’s what I wanted to do because I had professor Charles Allen in law school and admired his appellate advocacy in the U.S. Supreme Court. I dreamed I’d one day argue in the U.S. Supreme Court, and I did. He helped me prepare for both cases that I argued, Board of Commissioners of Bryan County v. Brown and Gebser v. Lago Vista Independent School District. 

Indiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Loretta H. Rush: Before I went to law school, I’d never met a lawyer or a judge. I planned on becoming an engineer, so I went to Purdue University. But I fell in love with constitutional law. You take these rights and these messy fact situations, and then you apply those rights to reach a solution. Then I looked at the power of the law with regard to problem solving, and what the rule of law means for a society to function appropriately. I just really like the law. And I’ve now been a lawyer and a judge for 41 years. 

Arizona Supreme Court Justice Clint Bolick: I didn’t have a dream legal career. I grew up in a working-class family. Only one of my parents graduated from high school. So as a kid, a professional career — really, of any sort — was not in my plans. I never even met a lawyer growing up. The TV shows about the law at that time, like Perry Mason, were incredibly boring. So law was not among the careers I considered. Actually, as a kid I wanted to be a garbage man. I was the first person in my family to graduate from college and throughout college I wanted to become a schoolteacher and go into politics. But three things happened that changed that. The first was interning on Capitol Hill, where I realized that politics was really not in my nature. The second was interning in an inner city high school and concluding that the problems facing disadvantaged kids were so systemic that they had to be approached in a broader fashion than just one student at a time. And finally, I took a constitutional law class during my junior year of college and it was an epiphany. It made me realize that law was the way to change the world in a principled way. For example, learning about a case like Brown v. Board of Education, which did exactly that, was unbelievably inspiring. I decided to go to law school with the dream of practicing constitutional law. Fortunately, I had no mentors, because surely they would have told me that no one gets to practice constitutional law for a living.

Former New York High Court Judge Albert Rosenblatt: The truth is, I really had no dream legal career. After leaving law school, I was in New York City for a couple of years. But I knew I wouldn’t stay there. I just thought it was not the place where I would feel most comfortable or where I would flourish. Then I took a season off, went skiing in Europe, to clear my head a little bit. When I got back, I moved to Poughkeepsie, New York, and never left. I got very lucky. I became an assistant D.A. and then district attorney. Then I served on the judiciary for many years. I feel very fortunate.

Interviews were conducted by Erin Geiger Smith, a writer and editor at the Brennan Center; Doug Keith, a founding editor of State Court Report and a senior counsel in the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center; and Gabriella Sanchez, writer and editor at the Brennan Center. Additional excerpts from the justices’ interviews can be found here. 

Suggested Citation: Erin Geiger Smith, Douglas Keith, & Gabriella Sanchez, State High Court Judges Reflect on Their 'Dream Careers’, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (Nov. 12, 2024), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/state-high-court-judges-reflect-their-dream-careers