CARRIE SEVERINO: Amy Coney Barrett And The Virtues Of Serving The Law

In an age when everyone seems determined to be heard, Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s new book makes a radical proposal: listen. Listening to the Law isn’t just a title—it’s a judicial philosophy, a personal ethic, and a challenge to how we think about the role of judges in American democracy. Barrett argues that judges shouldn’t speak for the law but listen to it. After reading her book, I’m convinced she practices what she preaches.

Barrett is not dictating what the law should be, but paying attention to the words agreed upon by our elected representatives. She isn’t molding the Constitution into her own likeness but listening to its text and how it has been understood over the past 250 years. And while she is a pathbreaker in many ways, she is not striking a new path in how to be a Supreme Court justice. She recognizes that she is part of an institution that predates her and will, God willing, outlive her, showing profound respect for the historical legacy she has inherited.

When senators talk about public service, I take it with a grain of salt. Even the best have robust instincts for self-promotion—probably a prerequisite for elected office. Some judges, too, clearly aspire to promotion. If every senator looks in the mirror and sees a future president, most judges probably see a future justice.

But Justice Barrett’s own description of her career path strikes me as different. Her nomination was surely exciting and flattering, but it entailed real sacrifice. She accepted the position out of respect for the institution, love of country, and in response to a genuine vocation. While many promoted her as a potential justice, Barrett herself didn’t lobby for the nomination or plan her life around becoming a judge, let alone a justice. She loved her academic career, particularly its accommodation of family life. The appeals court similarly allowed balance—as she describes it, “daily life was not divided into ‘law’ and ‘parenting.’ It was all happening at once.”

For Barrett a Supreme Court seat wasn’t exactly her dream job. The changes were not all positive: moving her family across the country, loss of privacy, a less flexible schedule, and increased security threats for herself and her family. She describes the feeling in the pit of her stomach when invited to interview, and she and her husband used the image of “burning their boats” to capture their commitment to this new direction. When she says she moved forward because of her commitment to serving our country and Constitution, even through sacrifice, I believe her. Tellingly, when asked in interviews whether she likes the job, she simply replies that it is an honor to serve.

The book’s tone reflects the many questions Barrett fields from friends, family, and acquaintances about what the Court is like and how it works. It serves as an excellent primer on how our constitutional system is organized and why originalism is the most principled interpretive method.

I appreciate her practical discussion of the Court’s operations. Even with my more attenuated connection to the Court, these are questions I receive regularly. Americans want to understand how this core institution works, and this book provides practical details found nowhere else. Barrett makes candid admissions—like acknowledging she doesn’t read every one of the often dozens of amicus briefs filed in cases. Lawyers practicing before the Court know these aren’t always valuable, but it’s rarely admitted publicly.

She also explains how she guards against political bias by imagining how she would address a case if it concerned different policies or litigants. This insight is helpful for advocates, who should prepare examples showing how their arguments work even with parties of opposite political valence. If you don’t have such examples ready, an opposing lawyer—or justice—might draw analogies favoring their reading of the law.

Justice Barrett, ever the teacher, spends the bulk of her book providing an excellent explanation of, and defense for, originalism and our constitutional structure, even including the text of the Constitution in an appendix. Justice Barrett and Justice Scalia, her former boss and mentor, may not have identical styles, but this book makes clear that she shares his view of how to approach the job of a judge. Her concern with explaining and defending originalism also follows in the footsteps of Justice Scalia’s own lifelong efforts as an evangelist for this judicial approach both in print and in his numerous public debates and lectures.

Justice Scalia once said that as a good judge you must “resign yourself to the fact that you’re not always going to like the conclusions you reach.” Barrett clearly took that lesson to heart. In Listening to the Law, she makes the case that judges must be servants rather than masters of the law—listeners rather than speakers. As Barrett continues to shape American law for decades to come, this book offers an invaluable window into the mind behind the opinions—and a reminder that listening, not speaking, may be the most important thing a justice can do.

Carrie Campbell Severino is the president of JCN, and co-author with Mollie Hemingway of the bestselling book Justice on Trial: The Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Court. 

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Sunira Moses/Wikimedia Commons)