Law Profession Collegiality Boosts Judicial System, Barrett Says

US Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett praised “collegiality” in the legal field as foundational to a well-functioning judicial system.

“Law is a profession that, unlike some others, operates continually under the strain of disagreement,” she said Monday. “Doctors cooperate and coordinate to deal with patients. Engineers work together to build a bridge. But litigants and their lawyers are pitted against one another on opposite sides.”

“That doesn’t sound like an advertisement for law school, that sounds a little bleak,” she said, but the upside is that attorneys learn how to argue “without letting it consume relationships.”

“I’m grateful to the way our bar conducts itself in that regard, because that is what enables the judicial system to work well, that collegiality,” she said in brief remarks at the Seventh Circuit Judicial Conference in Chicago.

The former Notre Dame law professor was a Seventh Circuit judge before being named by President Donald Trump in 2020 to the Supreme Court. She received a standing ovation from most of the conference attendees.

Unlike some of her Supreme Court colleagues in recent appearances, Barrett steered clear of controversies over its rulings, threats to judicial independence, and how the justices are managing challenges to Trump administration immigration and other policies.

Other justices have made similar points about collegiality and professionalism on their bench in general despite ideological tension over conservative-majority rulings in recent terms upending abortion rights and affirmative action, and underscoring executive authority in the Trump era.

Barrett is coming off a term during which she voted against Trump policies, for example partially siding with the court’s liberal minority on deportation of alleged Venezuelan gang members. Her unwillingness to move in lockstep with the administration sparked heavy criticism from the right.

While one analysis showed Barrett frequently occupying a moderate middle given the court’s overall rightward shift, in the last term she also authored a seismic decision in Trump v. CASA, which made it significantly harder for federal judges to universally halt enforcement of executive orders.