The Supremes

I find it really disheartening to see the level of attention we lavish on these rituals for elevating someone to the Supreme Court. Judge Sotomayor seems like a nice person, but is she the best candidate we can come up with nationwide? Now, we all understand that she is going to be confirmed. Yet we have to go through this mind-numbing ritual. And, in grand political style, the candidate has to skate delicately away from some of her nonsensical and injudicious remarks. The Congressional staffers helping her out have all the stock phrases: "I was quoted out of context;" "That was then, this is now;" "I'm a different person now;" "I would be a Supreme for all the people." Pick one and rework--we're done.

I've written before about my meeting with Chancellor William Chandler III of the Delaware Chancery Court some time back. Sitting at a table of lawyers, the questions came rapid fire for the Chancellor. He had several qualities I admired. The first is that his pace did not rise to match the rapid breathing, high heart rate of his questioners. He sat back, Zen-like and listened intently. He also thought about his response before he spoke. On television, the producer would have been crying about "dead air."

When he responded, at first, it didn't seem as if he were answering the question. However, if you listened carefully, it was exactly what he was doing, and the response was not, "I think, I think..." He gave a short, very precise response to what the salient point was, or should have been. It was very impressive.

The good news is that since most public companies are still Delaware corporations, that bench will still have lots of influence on corporate law and governance. The Harvard Law School governance blog carried a nice piece about the work that the Chancery court is doing.

If only the Supremes would aspire to be these qualities.