Stephen L. Carter - Stephen L. Carter is the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale University. A former law clerk for US Supreme Court Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall, Carter is a frequent lecturer on subjects ranging from religion and politics to business ethics.
He is the author of many books, including The Culture of Disbelief: How Our Legal and Political Cultures Trivialize Religious Devotion; The Dissent of the Governed: A Meditation on Law, Religion and Loyalty; Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby; and the novel The Emperor of Ocean Park. He serves as an Aspen Institute trustee and seminar moderator.
Meryl Chertoff - Meryl Chertoff is director of the Sandra Day O'Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary at Georgetown Law School, an academic institute that studies and educates the public about federal and state courts. She also directs Georgetown Conversations, a law and public policy symposium program, and she is an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown.
As a legislative relations consultant in New Jersey, she represented corporations, professional associations, and charitable organizations before the state legislature and regulatory agencies, specializing in health, education, youth, and financial services issues.
She also served as director of New Jersey’s Washington office and worked in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s legislative affairs office.
Judith Kaye - Judith S. Kaye is chief judge of the State of New York and the first woman to occupy the state judiciary's highest office.
In 1983, she became the first woman to serve on New York State's highest court when she was appointed associate judge of the Court of Appeals.
Her current posts also include chair of the Permanent Judicial Commission on Justice for Children, founding member and honorary chair of Judges and Lawyers Breast Cancer Alert, and member of the board of editors for the New York State.
She has served as president of the Conference of Chief Justices and has chaired the board of directors of the National Center for State Courts.
She is the author of many articles dealing with legal process, state constitutional law, women in law, and professional ethics.
Sandra Day O'Connor - Sandra Day O'Connor is a retired Associate Justice. She was born in El Paso, Texas, March 26, 1930. She received her B.A. and LL.B. from Stanford University.
She served as Deputy County Attorney of San Mateo County, California from 1952-1953 and as a civilian attorney for Quartermaster Market Center, Frankfurt, Germany from 1954-1957.
From 1958-1960, she practiced law in Maryvale, Arizona, and served as Assistant Attorney General of Arizona from 1965-1969. She was appointed to the Arizona State Senate in 1969 and was subsequently reelected to two two-year terms. In 1975 she was elected Judge of the Maricopa County Superior Court and served until 1979, when she was appointed to the Arizona Court of Appeals.
President Reagan nominated her as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and she took her seat September 25, 1981. Justice O'Connor retired from the Supreme Court on January 31, 2006.
Theodore B. Olson - Theodore B. Olson served as the 42nd United States Solicitor General from 2001 to 2004. Previously he was an assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel in the Reagan Administration and a partner in the Los Angeles office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher. He has argued many cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, including issues of copyright, telecommunications, federal securities regulation, antitrust, the environment, school vouchers, criminal law, immigration, due process, voting rights, equal protection, the separation of powers, and the constitutionality of campaign finance reform law.
He successfully represented George W. Bush and Dick Cheney in the Supreme Court Bush v. Gore cases after the 2000 presidential election. He has written and lectured extensively on appellate advocacy, oral advocacy in the courtroom, and constitutional law.
Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, former solicitor general Ted Olson, law professor Stephen Carter, chief judge of the State of New York Judith S. Kaye and Georgetown Law Center O'Connor Project director Meryl Chertoff discuss the "single worst thing about the way we pick judges in the United States."
