The Catholic University of America

Justice Byron R. White's 31 years on the Supreme Court were

celebrated by many of those who knew him best
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"He was the most disciplined and toughest man I ever knew." Those eleven heartfelt words from Temple Law School Professor Leon Irish came as close to summing up the life of the late Supreme Court Justice Byron R. White as mere words can ever hope to do. A clerk to Justice White during the 1960's, Irish called his former boss, who died in the spring of 2002, a "perfect exemplar of his times."

The professor's recollections of White were presented as part of a scholarly symposium on his jurisprudence sponsored by The Catholic University Law Review on November 18th.

"On the Life and Work of Justice Byron R. White" gathered many of the Justice's former clerks, as well as family and friends, at The Catholic University of America School of Law to honor and celebrate his legacy. The event was held in coordination with the memorial service planned for Justice White at the United States Supreme Court on the afternoon of November 18th.

Appointed by President Kennedy in 1962, Byron R. White was an independent and sometimes lonely voice on the Supreme Court amidst the swirling social activism of the 1960s. A dissenter from many of the court's liberal rulings of that time, he was a consistent member of the court's increasingly conservative majority. His opinion writing reflected his essential character: precise, methodical and impatient to finish the job. On the bench, the gravelly voiced White was a tough interrogator of the lawyers who appeared before the court. His questions were brief and direct, and he had zero tolerance for the ill-prepared or longwinded. In making Byron Raymond White his first Supreme Court pick, Kennedy said White had "excelled in everything he had attempted."

Symposium presenters addressed significant developments in substantive areas of law during Justice White's 31 years on the Court, including his opinions on first amendment issues, equal protection and affirmative action, separation of powers, the right to privacy and other far-reaching topics.