• Work Habits of John Quincy Adams

    John Quincy Adams, the sixth President of the United States, was not only a statesman but also a model of discipline and intellectual rigor. After reading both Harlow Unger’s John Quincy Adams and Randall Woods’s John Quincy Adams: A Man for the Whole People, I’ve compiled some of his work habits:

    • Walking for exercise: Adams walked six miles daily, often before breakfast, as part of his fitness routine.
    • Prolific reader and writer: He immersed himself in the classics, read extensively, and wrote consistently.
    • Annual Bible reading: Adams made it a point to read the entire Bible every year.
    • Early riser: He woke at 5:00 AM, a practice he considered essential for productivity.
    • Swimming in the Potomac: As he aged, he shifted from long walks to swimming, often spending 30 minutes to 1.5 hours in the Potomac River at dawn.
    • Morning routine as President: While serving as President, he typically woke between 5:00 and 6:00 AM, walked four miles, and read three chapters of the Bible before breakfast.
    • Advice to his son: In a letter to his son Charles, Adams emphasized early rising as a cornerstone of success, writing, “Rise early, between 5-6,” and declaring, “Genius is the child of toil.”
    • Later years: Near the end of his life, Adams would wake at 4:00 AM to read, write, meditate, and enjoy the sunrise.
    • Diary-keeping: Starting at age 12, Adams maintained a diary for 68 years.
    • Daily prayer: Each morning, he recited the Lord’s Prayer before getting out of bed.
    • Poetry: Adams often wrote poetry.
    • Foreign Languages: He taught himself foreign languages by translating books

  • Work Habits of Learned Hand

    After reading Gerald Gunther’s excellent biography of Learned Hand, I’ve compiled some notable work habits and character traits of this influential judge:


    • Disliked Using the Telephone: Hand preferred written correspondence and was an avid letter-writer.
    • Daily Walks: He took 4-mile walks through Manhattan to the courthouse every day.
    • Openness to Different Views: Hand placed immense value on being open to all points of view, especially those with which he initially disagreed. He once remarked, “Skepticism is my only gospel, but I don’t want to make a dogma out of it.”
    • Disdain for Law Practice: Despite his accomplishments, he disliked practicing law.
    • Lifelong Reader: Hand was a voracious and broad-ranging reader throughout his life.
    • Philosophical Interests: He maintained a lifelong interest in reading philosophy.


    Pre-Conference Memorandums
    • The Second Circuit introduced a pre-conference memo procedure to encourage individual consideration of each case before group discussions.
    • Each judge would work through the case independently and form tentative conclusions before consulting with colleagues.
    • Judges refrained from reading others’ memos until they had completed their own.
    • Hand’s memos typically ranged from two to four pages, but some were as long as ten pages.


    Writing Process
    • Hand wrote all his own opinions. His law clerks were tasked with familiarizing themselves with cases by reading briefs and supplemental materials, so they could discuss the issues thoroughly with him.
    • He drafted his opinions on legal-size yellow pads, often seeking feedback from his clerks. Some opinions went through as many as thirteen drafts.


    Personality and Leisure
    • Humor and Sarcasm: Hand’s sense of humor and sharp wit were unmatched among his peers.
    • Musical Interests: He enjoyed singing old Calvinist hymns, sea chanteys, and Gilbert and Sullivan numbers.
    • Theater and Literature: Hand loved attending the theater and reading classic literature, though he rarely went to the movies.


    Work Ethic
    • Hand often worked on weekends and holidays, frequently spending time at the library of the City Bar Association.

  • Legal Interpretation: Stephen Breyer vs. Richard Posner

    Stephen Breyer’s latest 2024 book, Reading the Constitution: Why I Chose Pragmatism, Not Textualism, suggests that he has somewhat shifted toward an approach more closely aligned with Richard Posner’s concept of legal pragmatism. In the book, Breyer argues that textualism alone does not produce sound legal decisions. He explains, for example, that not all cases allow a judge to simply rely on dictionaries for legal solutions. To use a famous example, the phrase “No Vehicles allowed in the Park” would, under a strict textualist interpretation, prohibit ambulances from entering the park to provide care to joggers. Instead, Breyer argues that we must consider the underlying purpose behind the statute. What was the statute intended to achieve? Only when we know the underlying purpose of a statute, according to Breyer, can judges properly interpret statutes in difficult cases.

    In addition, according to Breyer, we should also ask how a reasonable legislator would have approached the case in question. To determine this, we can look at factors such as legislative history, the text itself, and even dictionaries, but always with the purpose of the statute in mind. Breyer emphasizes that the purpose of the words matters in both statutory and constitutional interpretation. Textualism, which relies primarily on dictionaries, and originalism, which focuses mainly on how people at the time understood the text at issue, do not always provide adequate answers in challenging cases. Much of Breyer’s book can be seen as a direct response to Justice Scalia’s version of originalism, despite Justice Scalia having passed away in 2016.

    While Breyer’s arguments seem in some sense reasonable, it appears that he has somewhat adopted elements of Richard Posner’s version of legal pragmatism without expressly acknowledging this shift in his thinking. In Breyer’s 2005 book, Active Liberty, Breyer introduced the concept of “Active Liberty” as a guiding principle for interpretation, arguing that legal interpretations that promote a more democratic society are preferable. In Active Liberty, Breyer distinguishes between “Liberty of the Ancients” and “Liberty of the Moderns.” It was this distinction in varying conceptions of liberty that guided Breyer’s theory of legal interpretation. However, in Chapter 11 of Richard Posner’s 2008 book How Judges Think, Posner strongly criticized Breyer’s “active liberty” method and Breyer’s attempt to distinguish different conceptions of liberty. However, in Breyer’s latest book, Breyer now seems to focus on purposes, consequences, intent, and other factors in addition to the words themselves, similar to Posner’s theory of interpretation. This change in Breyer’s thinking parallels Posner’s own debate between legal pragmatism and legal realism.

    In his 2008 book How Judges Think, Posner also outlines various methods of judicial interpretation, with an emphasis on the debate between legal pragmatism and legal realism. Posner advocates for essentially a consequentialist approach to legal interpretation, often framing it as legal pragmatism. Posner argues that judges should examine the purpose of a statute (or a clause in the Constitution, or a clause in a contract, etc.) and ask what the intended goal of the language was. One way to determine this purpose is to evaluate the consequences of different interpretations. If a particular interpretation leads to bizarre or impractical outcomes—or, as Posner phrases in his earlier works, “economic inefficiencies”—this suggests that such an interpretation was not the intended one. By considering the pragmatic consequences of various interpretations, Posner argues that judges can arrive at better legal outcomes.

    In Breyer’s latest explanation of his theory of legal interpretation, it seems that Breyer somewhat simply adopts Posner’s arguments and discards his previous “active liberty” framework, without expressly acknowledging that this is what he is doing.

  • Work Habits of Richard Posner

    I recently read William Domnarski’s excellent biography of Judge Richard Posner (link here) and below are some work habits of Judge Posner taken from the book, listed in order.

    • Worked in long discrete focused blocks of time. He would continue on a task until it was completed. For example, he would spend the morning on one opinion, then a similar block of time later on a second opinion, then edit other opinions, etc. (p.98).
    • Would write opinions at home during the evening after oral arguments. For example, he would come back to the office the next day with a 30 page opinion with “[citation]” in places for citations. He would give the draft to his clerk to write a critical memo, then Posner would take the memo and write a second draft, and this would repeat 4, 5, or 6 times (p. 98-99; p. 167).
    • Posner asked for more work his first year as a judge on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals but was declined.
    • Posner never used footnotes in his opinions (p. 101).
    • On statutory interpretation, his starting point is not to fixate on words or clauses in question, but to ask the broader question of the statute’s purpose. For him, rather than ask about the definition of a word, we need “to ask what is at stake in the definition.” (p. 112).
    • Posner enjoyed intellectual criticism to keep him sharp. “You want criticism rather than comfort and praise.” (p. 145-146).
    • Posner would write his analysis first, and afterwards look for legal support. He wouldn’t read authorities first and then build a conclusion (p. 168).
    • From years 2003-2009, took average of 15 trips per year, for conferences, workshops, lectures, debates, etc. (p. 196).
    • Worked 7 days a week (p. 246).
    • Wrote around 90 opinions per year. In comparison, Judge Henry Friendly wrote around 30 opinions per year (p. 249).

  • Work Habits of William O. Douglas

    I finished reading Bruce Allen Murphey’s excellent biography of Justice William O. Douglas. Link to the book is here.

    Below are some work habits from William Douglas in order as presented in the book. He served on the Supreme Court for 36 years, wrote 1,164 full opinions, 486 dissents, 32 books, and hundreds of public speeches.

    • “He [Douglas] just did what was required and nothing more. He didn’t have the same passion for the law.” (p. 49).
    • During his time at Cravath law firm, he worked 14-16 hour days and weekends. He arrived before 9:00 AM to the office and oftentimes worked until 2:00, 3:00, or 4:00 AM. Associates were expected to bill 300 hours per month, so they often worked 80-90 hours per week. Douglas quit Cravath after 4 and a half months (p. 54, 58).
    • During his time as a justice on the Supreme Court, he would often march into his office and yell “Work is energizing” to his staff (p. 407).
    • Pages 407-409 of the book go into detail how he was often very rude to his staff and clerks.
    • He would leave the office between 6:00 PM and 8:00 PM (p. 407).
    • During oral arguments, Douglas would often be writing on another case, working on a speech or a book, or just writing developing new ideas (p. 410).
    • In Douglas’s early years, he would write all his own opinions and would draft them on a yellow legal pad. In later years, clerks were allowed to draft more (p. 411).
    • His typical workday was 12-14 hours (p. 486).
    • Douglas could often write an entire opinion by hand on a yellow legal pad in one sitting (p. 487).

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