帕梅拉•托金

William K. Suter

This is part of the book The U.S. Supreme Court: Equal Justice Under the Law, published by the State Department's Bureau of International Information Programs.

The U.S. Supreme Court employs nine officers who assist the court in the performance of its functions. Here we present first-person accounts by four of the officers currently serving the court: the clerk, the marshal, the reporter of decisions and the public information officer. The officers discuss their roles in the administration of the court and their feelings about their jobs. The other court officers are the counselor to the chief justice, the librarian, the court counsel, the curator and the director of data systems.

William K. Suter
Clerk

William K. Suter became the 19thclerk of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991. Previously, he was a career officer and a lawyer in the U.S. Army; he retired with the rank of major general. He is a graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and the Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans, Louisiana. He will retire at the end of the 2013 term.

As I was completing a career in the Army as a judge advocate and nearing the end of my term of service, I learned that the clerk’s position was coming open at the U.S. Supreme Court. I applied and was offered the job two days after my interview. That was 18 years ago, and every day has been a wonderful day since I was appointed the 19th clerk of the court.

The job of a clerk essentially is to be the conduit between lawyers, litigants, the people, and the court. Every court that I know of in the world has a clerk. In Canada, she’s called the registrar. In Brazil, he’s called the secretary general. All over Europe and Asia, every court has a clerk.

Here at the U.S. Supreme Court, when you come to file a suit, an appeal, or a petition, you don’t go to see someone wearing a robe; you see the clerk or one of his or her designees, and they handle the legal paperwork. Here at the court, there are 32 of us, including highly trained paralegals, non-paralegals, and attorneys, who do the work of gathering documents and ensuring that cases are eligible to be heard by the court and are filed in a timely manner. We prepare the documents so that the justices are able to use them to make decisions regarding the parties.

I also have other ceremonial roles in the court. For example, I attend all full argument sessions of the court; I’m seated at one end of the bench, and the marshal of the court is seated on the other end. We’re there to provide any assistance the justices might need. Also, when motions are made for lawyers to be admitted to the Supreme Court — to do any business with this court, you must be a member of our bar — the chief justice entertains and grants the motion, and then I administer the oath of office to new members of the bar.

I’ve listened to more than 1,300 oral arguments during my time here, and even though lawyers who appear before the Supreme Court have studied and practiced their arguments for hundreds of hours, they’re still very nervous because they’re facing nine exceptionally bright justices who have read the briefs thoroughly and have prepared dozens of questions.

We try to assist the lawyers so that they’re not any more nervous than they are naturally, arguing in front of the Supreme Court, and I’ve written a booklet to advise counsel on the things I recommend they do — and things I recommend they not do. In any event, the oral argument is lawyering at its best.

This court continues to be driven by two things: tradition and discipline. An example of the tradition of the court is the morning suit, comprised of tails and striped pants, that the marshal of the court and I wear whenever we’re in court, and that all clerks and marshals have worn before us. In terms of discipline, there is no such thing as a big case or a small case at the Supreme Court; all cases are important, and no one gets emotionally involved in a case. You do your job.

Being a student of the law for many years, a lawyer, and an American, and always having had great respect for our legal system and for the Supreme Court, just entering this building every morning makes me feel worthwhile. I think we all share a sense of mission that we’re here to do the work for the court to fulfill its constitutional mission for the people.

Pamela Talkin
Marshal

Pamela Talkin is the 10th marshal of the U.S. Supreme Court and the first woman to hold the position. She earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Spanish from the City University of New York at Brooklyn College and previously served as the deputy executive director of the U.S. Office of Compliance, a regulatory agency.

I oversee the security, operations, and maintenance of the Supreme Court building. My most visible role is to attend all sessions of the court and to fulfill the responsibility of “crying” the court when it is in session from October through June. Before court begins, I bang the gavel — I’m the only person in the courtroom with a gavel — introduce the nine justices and open the court with the official opening cry of the court, part of which is “Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!”

I am the first woman marshal and only the 10th marshal that the court has ever had. All of my predecessors have worn formal attire, and when I became marshal, there was no doubt that I would wear the same thing that all the men had always worn when attending sessions of the court: a formal morning suit with tails, pin-striped slacks, and a vest.

One of my most important jobs is ensuring the security of the court. I manage the court’s independent police force as they protect the building and provide security for the justices, other court employees, and visitors. About eight weeks after I took the job as marshal, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States occurred. In terms of the safety and security of the court, that event changed the way we all looked at security and access to public places.

Another one of my main functions is to “attend the court,” which means that I am responsible for escorting the justices to Congress for the State of the Union address, to presidential inaugurations and state funerals, and to other official functions, as well as for ensuring their security at those events. Further, my office coordinates most of the approximately 1,000 lectures, receptions, dinners, and other events that take place annually at the Supreme Court.

Christine Luchok Fallon became the 16th reporter of decisions at the U. S. Supreme Court in 2011. She is a graduate of West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia, and the Columbus School of Law at Catholic University of America in Washington. Previously she worked as an attorney, a legal editor, and the Supreme Court’s deputy reporter of decisions.

My primary responsibility is to see that the legal opinions handed down by the court are published in a set of law books called the United States Reports. These volumes are an official publication of the court.

Before the court issues any case, my staff and I carefully examine each opinion in the case for the accuracy of citations and quotations, for style, and for typographical and grammatical errors. An attorney and a paralegal in this office read every draft of every opinion in every case prior to its release. And we re-edit the opinions after they are released as we prepare them for publication in the United States Reports.

We also produce short analytical summaries of the opinions called syllabuses. Though the syllabus is the work of the reporter, each syllabus is reviewed and approved by the Chambers whose writings it reflects.

I am the court’s 16th reporter of decisions, and the first woman to hold the position. The court has had reporters since it first conducted business in 1790. However, the early reporters had one thing in common: They were not court employees but entrepreneurs who took careful notes of what happened at the court and then sold those notes to the public. Today, my position is one of five positions at the court that has been created by law. Although each of my fellow officers is responsible for managing a different function at the court, we all work closely together in a truly collaborative fashion.

An attorney who argues a case before the court may study the reports to see what the court has decided in similar cases. At oral argument, they may be asked to distinguish their argument from other cases that the court has heard, so it is important that the reports accurately reflect what the court has said.

In the 25 years that I have been at the court, first as the deputy reporter and now as the reporter, I have been privileged to work on many important and interesting cases, including the well-known Bush v. Gore case, cases involving federal campaign finance law, and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act case. Newsworthy or not, each case that the court releases should be as error-free as possible from a technical standpoint.

I believe that my role in ensuring such accuracy at the time of release has become more important in recent years, as the public has come to expect instantaneous access to the court’s opinions. When I first came to the court, opinions were handed down in paper form. Someone who wanted to read an opinion might have to wait three or four days to receive a paper copy. Today, copies of the court’s opinions are put up on the court’s website within minutes of their release and are immediately available to anyone in the world who is interested in reading what the court has to say. Within a few hours, I may receive inquiries from readers about errors or perceived errors. Thus, now more than ever, it is important for the reporter to try to ensure that every “i” is dotted and “t” is crossed before a case is released.

Kathleen Landin Arberg
Public Information Officer

Kathleen Landin Arberg became the fifth public information officer of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1999. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia and previously worked as a motions clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, a paralegal in the U.S. Tax Court, and a case manager at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

I am the public information officer at the U.S. Supreme Court and the fifth person to hold the position, which was created in 1935. The chief justice at the time realized that the court opinions were being reported inaccurately by the media, or not reported at all. To correct the problem, the Public Information Office was established to be the source for information about the court and a point of contact for reporters and the public. I serve as the court’s spokeswoman. My primary responsibilities are to educate the public about the history and function of the court, to release the court’s orders and opinions from my office at the same time that they are announced by the justices in the courtroom, and to facilitate accurate and informed media coverage.

The Supreme Court press corps is comprised of approximately 35 people from 18 news organizations who are assigned to cover the court on a full-time basis. But for high-profile cases, more than 100 reporters might come to the court. The court provides a pressroom for reporters to use. Journalists who cover the court on a regular basis are given assigned spaces to work. The court provides broadcast booths suitable for television and radio reporters to use.

Because there are no cameras allowed in the courtroom, artists’ sketches are used to illustrate oral arguments. But, after oral arguments, reporters and camera crews gather on the marble plaza in front of the court building to interview the attorneys associated with the case.

Until the opinions are announced by the justices at 10 a.m., no one knows in advance what they will be, so there’s an element of suspense. This is especially true near the end of the term when it is typical for the more highly anticipated cases of the term to be decided.

My office organizes the opinions in the order that they will be announced in the courtroom. They are announced in order of the seniority of the justice who wrote the opinion.

We listen to the announcements of the court on speakers in my office and hand out the opinions one at a time as they are announced in the courtroom. The justice who wrote the opinion briefly summarizes the facts of the case and the court’s decision. Some reporters listen in my office so they can obtain copies of the opinions immediately and start writing stories. Other reporters choose to hear the announcements in the courtroom, where they sit in a section of seats reserved for members of the press.

The Public Information Office never comments on an opinion or attempts to explain an opinion, because the opinions of the court speak for themselves. We will, however, provide guidance to journalists by pointing them in the direction of resources or people outside the court who might be helpful, such as the attorneys who argued the case or constitutional law experts.

The opinions expressed are those of the authors.