In the 1950s, summer associate jobs at law firms didn’t exist — at least not for pay. So my first job out of law school gave me my first real exposure to the bar anywhere. Happily for me, that “anywhere” was Washington, D.C.
The job was as a law clerk to Justice Sherman Minton at the U.S. Supreme Court. While Justice Minton was hardly a consummate Washington insider, he had served one term as a U.S. senator and been a part of Franklin Roosevelt’s White House staff before he became a judge. He knew most of the heavy hitters who came before the Court.
