What's It Like To Be Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's Granddaughter?

Like it or not, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has aged into a pop-culture icon. The octogenarian’s likeness can be found on merchandise ranging from pins to buttons to mugs to t-shirts to totes, and the liberal lioness has warmly welcomed her newfound fame. Young women are, dare we say, obsessed with the self-declared “flaming feminist litigator,” and have manicured their nails and even tattooed their arms with her visage. Amid all of this fanfare, Justice Ginsburg’s adoring devotees seem to have forgotten that underneath her robes, she’s just like us — she’s a regular person with a life that exists outside of the Supreme Court’s walls, and no one knows this more than her family.

Aside from “Justice,” Ruth Bader Ginsburg has an equally important title: “Bubbie.” Her granddaughter, recent Harvard Law School graduate Clara Spera, wrote a lovely piece in Glamour about her relationship with America’s most popular judge.

You may know her as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, or affectionately as the Notorious RBG, but to me she’s Bubbie. Bubbie with whom I spend most High Holy Days. Bubbie who took me to see The Book of Mormon, where we both laughed until we cried. Bubbie who loves going to the movies. Bubbie at whom I get a kick out of poking fun. Just a Bubbie like any other.

From a very young age, Justice Ginsburg tried to infuse her time spent with her granddaughter with subtle lessons about life as a woman and the law. For example, Spera’s third birthday was celebrated at the Supreme Court, just two months after Justice Ginsburg was sworn in. A few years later, Spera accompanied her grandmother on a trip to an all-women’s college to see her speak, and to witness a place that was dedicated to the advancement of women’s academic achievement. Many years later, Spera was enrolled in law school as Justice Ginsburg’s star was on the rise. Though she tried to keep her familial connection close to her chest, she “always felt a secret wave of pride and a little awkwardness whenever we discussed her opinions of jurisprudence.”

Now that she’s a law school graduate with a clerkship at the Southern District of New York, Spera acknowledged that things had truly come full circle when she came to a realization about why Justice Ginsburg hosted her third birthday party at SCOTUS:

[M]y birthday party wasn’t held there to show off or because the Court’s such an impressive space; it was because she wanted me to know, from the age of three, that my grandmother, my ­Bubbie, worked there, and that I shouldn’t consider anything out of my reach.

Justice Ginsburg taught her granddaughter one of the most important life lessons of all at the tender age of three: Reach for the stars, and you may yet become one — no matter your gender. Life is sweet when your Bubbie is on the Supreme Court.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Granddaughter: ‘You Know Her as the Notorious RBG, but She’s Bubbie to Me’ [Glamour]

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Staci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.