The Privilege of Clerking for Thurgood Marshall Susan Low Bloch Thurgood Marshall is a giant. Over six feettall, he is an imposing figure. But it is not his physical stature that makes him so impressive. It is his conviction, commitment,and courage-hispassion ate conviction that racial discrimination is morally reprehensible and has to be defeated, his strong commitment to the rule of law and the strength of morally irrefutable arguments, and his undying courageto fighttohelpman andsociety improve. As an advocate challengingthe legality ofsegregation, it was, his contemporariesnoted, as ifthe gods were Justice Thurgood Marshall served on the Court twenty-four years. Through the years he served as a role model, mentor, and friend to the men and women who clerked for him. speaking.1 As a Supreme CourtJustice interpreting our laws, he became our “supreme conscience.”2 Clerking for this giant of a man was both humbling and inspiring. We knew we could never equal Justice Marshall’s accomplishments. But we also knew we could learn much from his example. His experiences as “Mr. Civil Rights” taught us the power oflaw to improve society and our special responsibility to use that power. He passed on to us the lessons ofhis mentor Charles Houston: lawyers can be social engineers dedi cated to improving the workings of society and they dare not waste that potential. Given this guidance, it is no surprise to discoverthat many of Marshall’s formerclerks have gone on to work for the public interest - in universities, in govern ment, and in private foundations. The Judge or “TM” — titles he preferred over the more formal Mr. Justice — taught us never to give up. His refusal to acquiesce in the imposition of the death penalty and his tenacious dissent in every death penalty case taught us the power of dissent and the obligation to utilize it responsibly. Notsurprisingly, some ofhis greatestcontributions, like those of Justice Holmes, came in dissenting opinions. Indeed, the last opinion he wrote as a Justice was a passionate dissent. When the Court overruled two very recent cases and held that, in deathpenalty cases, the prosecution can introduce evidence concerning the impact of the crime on the victim’s family, Marshall was outraged not only by the decision but also by the Court’s seeming eagerness to overrule two recent cases. Predicting more such attacks on precedent, Marshall warned: “Power, not reason, is the new currency of this Court’s decisionmaking.”3 24 JOURNAL 1992 The Judge kept his clerks — and his colleagues — poignantly aware of the sufferings ofthe poor and downtrodden. He insisted we remember that we were deciding, not simply interesting legal questions, but the fate of real people in a real world. Withhisextensive experience andsensitive insight, he always detected - and made sure we understood - “whose ox was being gored;” characteristically,he reminded us with humor. As the ultimate raconteur, the Judge regaled us with storiesthatconveyedmoreknowledgeandwisdom than had all our years oflaw school.4 Fortunately, this contribution was appreciated as well by his colleagues. As Justice Byron White recently noted: “Thurgood broughtto the conference table years of experience in an area that was of vital importance to our work, experience that none of us could claim to match. Thurgood could tell us Susan Low Bloch with Justice Marshall at a clerk's reunion in the early 1980s. Professor Bloch clerked for Justice Marshall during the 1976 Term. the way it was, and he did so convincingly, often embellishing with humorous, sometimes hairraising , stories straight from his own past. He characteristically would tell us things that we knew but would ratherforget; and he told us much that we did not know due to the limitations ofour own experience.”5 Justice Marshalltaughtus the value ofhonesty andtenacity, neversugar-coatinganything. When the country was caught up in the euphoria of the bicentennial of the Constitution, Marshall re minded us that, with its condonation of slavery, the Constitution was “defective from the start....‘We the People’ no longer enslave,” said Marshall, but the credit belongs not to the framers who wrote the Constitution in 1787, but to those in the ensuing two hundred years “who refused to acquiesce in outdated notions of ‘liberty,’ ‘jus tice,’ and ‘equality,’ and who...