Lovely One

In Ketanji Brown Jackson’s memoir Lovely One, she provides a thorough chronology of her legal career, from her education as a Harvard law student to her current position as a Supreme Court justice. Jackson explains how each of these positions added to her knowledge of the law, and she discusses the tasks and responsibilities of each position. 

After graduating from law school, Jackson’s first professional position was as a law clerk to Judge Patti Saris, a judge in the US district courts. In the United States, law clerks are lawyers who are responsible for assisting judges with a variety of tasks, such as legal research, writing and editing, preparing memos, assembling documents, and more. Jackson explains how becoming a law clerk provides new lawyers with invaluable real-world experience: 

A litigator’s work involves persuading a judge or jury to rule in a client’s favor, and being able to spend a year inside a judge’s chambers—becoming her ‘elbow’ clerk—is an incomparable way to fortify one’s writing and analytical skills while also learning how the system functions from that side of the bench (183). 

While working for Judge Saris, Jackson was primarily responsible for aiding her with legal research on cases such as Guckenberger v. Boston University, in which 10 students with learning disabilities challenged the university’s policy regarding accommodation requests. After completing a second clerkship with Judge Bruce Selya, a judge in the US Court of Appeals, Jackson then completed her third clerkship for Justice Stephen Breyer in the Supreme Court. In this clerkship, she was primarily responsible for writing drafts of Justice Breyer’s opinions.

With these valuable experiences complete, Jackson began working for Goodwin Procter, a commercial law practice, as a litigation associate. She soon took on a similar position for the Feinberg Group, LLP. However, Jackson was eager to move on from this private practice experience and help to reform how the justice system functions in the US.

The United States Sentencing Commission gave Jackson an opportunity to do just that. The US Congress first created the Commission in 1984 with the goal to “reduce sentencing disparity” (260). Federal judges were handing out very different sentences for similar crimes, and the government created this commission to make sentencing more transparent, uniform, and proportional. Jackson was hired as assistant special counsel to the Sentencing Commission, making her responsible for understanding the commissioners’ recommendations and “writ[ing] them up into clear and precise legislative language” for the Commission’s Guidelines Manual (259). The Guidelines Manual provides judges with sentencing guidelines so that they can understand how to sentence convicted criminals fairly. Jackson believed that this was an important mission, and she maintains that “sentencing guidelines provide a much-needed framework to help judges arrive at more equitable case outcomes” (261).

After working for the Commission, Jackson became an assistant federal public defender in the US Court of Appeals. In this position, she defended clients who could not afford legal representation and fulfilled duties such as arguing cases and filing motions and briefs. Jackson was passionate about her work as a public defender, arguing that such professionals are “agents of liberty and democracy” who ensure that all citizens have access to legal representation (276). Underfunding and heavy caseloads have contributed to a critical shortage of public defenders across the US. As fewer lawyers enter this branch of the legal profession, the burdens on existing public defenders become even heavier, leading to a vicious cycle (Donahue, John J., and Eric Baldwin. “The Crisis of America’s Public Defenders.” Project Syndicate, 8 Oct. 2024). Jackson became a public defender to do her part in addressing this crisis.

After another stint at private law practice Morrison and Foerster, LLP, Jackson returned to the Sentencing Commission, this time as vice chair. In her new role with the Commission, Jackson had to collaborate with the other commissioners to ensure that the Fair Sentencing Act was communicated in the Guidelines Manual for judges. Jackson explains that the Fair Sentencing Act eliminated the differences in punishment for crack cocaine and powder cocaine possession, which Jackson calls “one of the most unfortunate and controversial sentencing disparities of our time” (311).

Soon after, President Obama nominated Jackson for a federal judge position in the Washington, DC, District Court. In the US, federal judges are nominated by the president and then confirmed by the Senate. Once hired, they are entitled to remain in their positions for life. After years of working as a federal judge, Jackson was nominated by President Biden to serve as a judge in the US Court of Appeals. She underwent a similar process of presidential nomination and Senate confirmation to begin this position. As a judge in this court, Jackson served on a panel of three judges who make decisions on appeals from district court cases. She explains that judges in the Court of Appeals “bear the responsibility of reviewing the work of their trial court colleagues in retrospect” (351). Since trial judges can make mistakes, Jackson believes that this “appellate oversight” provides a chance for such mistakes to be corrected and is therefore an essential part of the justice system.

In 2022, President Biden nominated Judge Jackson for another prestigious position: Supreme Court justice. Jackson was then interviewed by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, and the Senate voted to approve her confirmation as a justice. The Supreme Court consists of just nine justices, eight associate justices and one chief justice, all of whom are entitled to serve for life. This court is the highest in the US and is the final court of appeal, and as such, its decisions cannot be appealed. The Supreme Court’s rulings set important precedents that can impact how American laws are interpreted and enforced. Jackson explains that as the Supreme Court’s newest associate justice, she contributes to her country “by interpreting the law in accordance with congressional intent and core constitutional values” (385).