Is New York Law School’s Annette Gordon-Reed, the Pulitzer Prize-winning law professor/historian, on President Obama’s Supreme Court “short list”? Or, Alabama lawyer Bryan Stevenson, a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award recipient and tireless advocate on behalf of indigent defendants and prisoners? How about veteran consumer rights champion Alan Morrison and University of Notre Dame Law School Dean Patricia O’Hara?
Probably not. But they appear on the short lists of more than a dozen constitutional law and Supreme Court scholars asked by The National Law Journal to step into Obama’s shoes to pick a nominee to succeed retiring Justice David Souter. These scholars, who vary ideologically and geographically, most often recommended four women who are reportedly on Obama’s short list, giving the most nods to Pamela Karlan, a leading constitutional law scholar, voting rights authority and founding director of the Stanford Law School’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic.
