The Eyes of the Law: Justice Ginsburg at Georgetown

One of the great things about going to law school here in Washington, D.C., is access to the U.S. Supreme Court. If you’re at Georgetown Law and want to watch a SCOTUS argument, you can just stroll on over to One First Street.
And sometimes the mountain comes to Mohammed. Justices of the Supreme Court regularly visit Georgetown University Law Center. For example, last November, as reported in these pages, Justice Antonin Scalia paid a visit.
Today his considerably more liberal counterpart, fellow opera lover Ruth Bader Ginsburg, graced GULC with her presence. From a tipster (who took the iPhone picture at right):

Justice Ginsburg just left an admitted students event at GULC, a discussion about U.K./U.S. comparative law. Also in attendance was Lady Hale of the soon-to-be U.K. Supreme Court.

Justice Ginsburg was very dignified. She was wearing a brown suit — it looked like a carpet — paired with white stockings and yellowish shoes.

Best part: when she whipped a copy of the Constitution out of her pocket and read out the Equal Protection Clause!!!

I had my Con Law book ready for her signature, but she snuck out a side door right afterwards.

For the Article III groupies among you, a little more description of the event appears after the jump.


From our mole in the audience:

That’s Ginsburg on the left, a GULC dean in the middle, and Lady Hale — with her hyper-awesome English accent — on the right. She told stories about the lack of ladies’ “loos” when she first joined the court, after Ginsberg told a similar story. Said Lady Hale: “Everyone has a bathroom story.”

The discussion included a question, right off the bat, from Justice Ginsburg to Baroness Hale, about titles (ignoring the moderator’s planned discussion topic). Then they told anecdotes about being females on the high courts, then rambled a bit about how the new UK Supreme Court will work.

It went on for about 90 minutes. Then Justice Ginsburg dashed off, leaving me high and dry — with a Sharpie and an unsigned Con-Law book ;(

Don’t despair, tipster. Maybe you can bring your Con Law book to RBG’s husband, Georgetown tax professor Martin Ginsburg, and see if he can take it home to the Watergate for her to sign?
Brenda Hale, Baroness Hale of Richmond [Wikipedia]
Earlier: The Eyes of the Law: Justice Scalia at Georgetown

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