DENVER — Now that 10th Circuit Court Judge Neil Gorsuch has made President Trump’s short list of potential Supreme Court nominees, it would have been understandable if the judge had cancelled a previously booked speaking engagement given the heightened public interest surrounding him.
But Gorsuch kept his commitment and spoke Friday at the Colorado chapter of the Federalist Society, and was met by a larger than usual crowd.
“I wonder why there are so many people here today,” he joked. He also noted that when he was asked to teach a legal ethics class a few years back, he said he didn’t think he was the right candidate because he thought legal ethics were only taught by “gray-haired, battle-worn practitioners” of the law. “I looked in the mirror… and then I signed up,” he said to more laughter.
For the next hour, Gorsuch spoke softly but the small crowd remained impeccably silent, realizing they might be getting a one-of- a-kind chance to hear from a soon-to-be Supreme Court justice, and a pivotal one at that.
His talk centered around the question of how far can a lawyer go ethically in pursuit of diligently and zealously representing a client, and said that ethics was more than just “avoiding harms” to others.
“What else is there beyond avoiding harms to others? The golden rule. Tolerance. Civility. Self discipline. These come to mind as the cardinal virtues. Just because you have a law degree doesn’t give you license to forget what your grandmother taught you. The ethical virtues are hard work and take practice,” he said.
“I not only believe in traditional karma, but I believe your ethics is the most valuable thing in your possession.”
But in his closing, the Denver-born judge peeled even further away from the classroom theory portion of his speech and brought the great ethical question down to the most humble of propositions. He said that when his students press him on how they can really decide what the ethical course of action is, “I ask them, do this exercise. I ask them to take a few minutes and write their own obituary as they would have it appear. Does it extoll the virtues of your hourly billables? Of your mansion in the mountains?”
The mortality exercise is one Gorsuch clearly had done himself, saying he was inspired when visiting Boston’s famous Granary Burying Ground, a cemetery which includes the graves of John Hancock, Paul Revere, and other legendary historical figures.
But it was the tombstone of Increase Sumner, a former Governor of Massachusetts, and the words inscribed upon that grave that inspire him: “…As a Lawyer, he was capable and able. As a Judge, patient, impartial, and decisive. As a Chief Magistrate, accessible, frank and independent…In private live, he was affectionate and mild; In public life, he was dignified and firm.”
Gorsuch said the words of Sumner’s epitaph always sit on his desk, and that he reads them daily as a rudder.
There was no question and answer period after the speech.
