Justice Antonin Scalia is setting a terrible example for young lawyers. Ignore, for now, his jurisprudence, his famously strict originalism; it’s his tone that’s the problem.
I have taught argumentation for many years, first as an instructor to high school and college debaters, currently as a law professor. Throughout my career I have always cautioned students away from nastiness as a crutch for those who cannot win using reason or legal precedent. I have told them to stick to persuasion and to dissecting the opposition’s logical fallacies.
But lately my students have been turning in legal briefs laced with derision and ad hominem barbs. For this trend, I largely blame Scalia. My students read his work, find it amusing and imitate his truculent style.
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— Dean Erwin Chemerinsky of the UC Irvine School of Law, commenting on Justice Antonin Scalia’s “especially nasty, sarcastic and personal” opinions during the most recent Supreme Court Term. Chemerinsky, a constitutional law scholar, believes that Scalia is a bad influence on young attorneys.