U.S. District Judge Edward Korman of the Eastern District of New York owes a large part of his approach to deciding cases to advice from a former boss, Robert Bork, U.S. solicitor general at the end of the Nixon administration.

"We were talking," Korman said. "I’ve never forgotten this. He said, ‘There’s nothing wrong with judicial activism if what you’re actively enforcing is really in the Constitution or a statute. The problem is judicial imperialism.’"