SCOTUS in the Classroom: Constitutional Law from Justice Thomas

While I posted yesterday about the moot court competition in India that I went to, I decided that this had to be its own (short) post.

Dean Maggs is a former clerk of Justice Clarence Thomas’ and has a continuing friendship with him.  Last year, the law school offered a seminar co-taught by Dean Maggs and Justice Thomas (see http://www.gwhatchet.com/2011/09/08/supreme-court-justice-joins-faculty/), and this year it is back!  Registration for the class was conducted by lottery, and incredibly, a few good friends (Portia Gant and David Bender) and I were some of the lucky sixteen students to get admitted – it means I’ll be in a class taught by a U.S. Supreme Court justice starting in August, which is exhilarating.

This is an incredible opportunity that would be difficult to find at a non-D.C. law school, and especially somewhere that did not employ as many former SCOTUS clerks as GW.  Some of my favorite professors have clerked on the Court – Thomas Colby for Justice Souter and Orin Kerr for Justice Kennedy.  Besides them and Dean Maggs, the new Dean of the Law School, Paul Schiff Berman, clerked for Justice Ginsburg, while his wife – now a professor at GW – clerked for both Justices Blackmun and Breyer.  There are a number of others who have worked for the Nine as clerks who teach us at the Law School.  We are lucky to have them.