Adding to Mark Movsesian's tribute to his former boss - a "true gentleman," Movsesian calls him - I thought I might share a couple of stories about the "gentlemanly" side of Justice Souter. Though I knew Justice Souter hardly at all, he lodged himself in my memory as a result of a couple of encounters.
As many of you may know, there was (and, I trust, still is) a tradition at the Supreme Court that each chamber's clerks invite each of the other Justices, one at a time, to join them for lunch at some eatery near the Court. The year I clerked (1993-94, for RBG), we ended up having lunch with four of the Justices (Souter, Scalia, Rehnquist, and Thomas), missing out, for one reason or another given everyone's busy schedules and the general chaos that often prevails at the Court, on Kennedy, O'Connor, Stevens, and Blackmun.
Lunch with Souter was delightful, but what I remember most was that each of the clerks received a nice handwritten note from the Justice, thanking us for treating him to lunch. In each of the notes he inserted something that was pegged specifically to something we had said at lunch; in my case, he made reference to a couple of things I had mentioned regarding my kids, who were both in elementary school at the time - something about Sam's upcoming piano recital and Sarah's decision about which middle school she wanted to attend.
