That was Chief Justice Roberts last night at the University of Minnesota.
The Star Tribune has the details:
Roberts' advice to lawyers
who submit briefs to the court: Keep it short. When he gets a brief
shorter than the 50-page limit, Roberts joked that he'll pause, look to
see who the lawyer is and say to himself, "Whoa, I like her." Shorter
briefs also tend to be better written and focused.
When
lawyers come for oral arguments, he urged dispassion: Don't push back
against hypotheticals from the justices. That way, he said, the lawyers
and justices can figure out the issues together.
Stein asked Roberts why he put a Bob Dylan quote in an opinion: "Was it just to make the opinion more interesting?"
Roberts
said, no, but it was to make a point understandable for those who aren't
lawyers. The line: "When you have nothing, you've got nothing to lose."
He was explaining that to file a lawsuit against someone, you must have
something at stake in the fight.
Stein
asked Roberts if he heard from Dylan, but the chief justice said no.
Roberts, however, did get into a dispute with the New York Times over
his polishing the line from Dylan's singing, "When you ain't got
nothing."
The
audience, packed with dignitaries including former Vice President Walter
F. Mondale and the entire state Supreme Court, was warm to Roberts.
During the question-and-answer session from college students, he faced
inquiries about how he stayed motivated in law school, what he thought
of the Socratic method and "what is race?"