WASHINGTON — There are about 1.2 million lawyers in the U.S. They learned their craft at 200 American Bar Association-approved law schools, of which the top 20 or so are the most competitive, all with top-notch professors and students.
When Justice John Paul Stevens retires this summer, however, the eight remaining members of the Supreme Court — the top arbiter of U.S. law and a check and balance on the White House and Congress — will be comprised entirely of legal minds trained at two law schools, Harvard and Yale.
(Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg earned her law degree from Columbia, another Ivy League school — but only because she left Harvard Law after two years to follow her husband to New York for her final year of study.)
This Harvard-Yale predominance at the pinnacle of justice gives President Barack Obama yet another wrinkle to consider when seeking the best replacement for liberal anchor Stevens, in addition to experience, intellect, age, record, confirmability, gender, race, religion and geographic diversity.
Obama is a Harvard Law graduate, but he also promised to change how Washington works and to bring a greater diversity of Americans into the power structure.
Stevens attended Northwestern, in Chicago, now ranked 11th by U.S. News & World Report. The other seven justices, despite their diverse personal backgrounds, all earned their law degrees from Yale, now ranked No. 1, or from Harvard, No. 2.
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