There is nothing quite like the law library at the Supreme Court of the United States. Immediately arresting, and even better the longer you linger, the library makes you feel like you’re standing on the shoulders of giants just by being there. It’s like a lot of things in Washington, D.C., in that respect: The outward beauty of the fa�ade merely suggests the important things which rest within.
I found myself in that law library one day last winter completely by good luck. While type-A personalities may explain away happenstance by pointing to preparation, those of us who have been knocked about once too often by the fickle hand of fortune learn to appreciate good luck when we see it. It was lucky that, in my third year of law school, a former professor invited me to a constitutional law conference at the Supreme Court. It was lucky that, by hook and by crook, I managed to make it. And it was lucky that I happened to be standing in the right group of five people at that august institution the first evening when the law librarian offered to give us a quick tour.
