Justice Stephen Breyer

Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States
Interviewed by Julia Fong Sheketoff '10

Watch the video or read the transcript (PDF: 387.63 KB).

About the Interview

Justice Stephen G. Breyer was interviewed on May 18, 2017 by his former clerk Julia Fong Sheketoff '10 in the Lawyers' Lounge of the Supreme Court of the United States in Washington, DC. 

Biography

Justice Stephen Breyer

Stephen G. Breyer, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States, was born in San Francisco, California, August 15, 1938. He married Joanna Hare in 1967, and has three children—Chloe, Nell, and Michael. He received an AB from Stanford University, a BA from Magdalen College, Oxford, and an LLB from Harvard Law School. He served as a law clerk to Justice Arthur Goldberg of the Supreme Court of the United States during the 1964 term, as a special assistant to the assistant US attorney general for antitrust (1965–1967), as an assistant special prosecutor of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force (1973), as special counsel of the US Senate Judiciary Committee (1974–1975), and as chief counsel of that committee (1979–1980). He was an assistant professor, professor of law, and lecturer at Harvard Law School (1967–1994), a professor at the Harvard University Kennedy School of Government (1977–1980), and a visiting professor at the College of Law, Sydney, Australia and at the University of Rome. From 1980 to 1990, he served as a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, and as its chief judge from 1990 to 1994. He also served as a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States (1990–1994), and of the United States Sentencing Commission (1985–1989). President Clinton nominated him as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, and he took his seat August 3, 1994. 

Video Excerpts

On working together with fellow Justices

 

 

On being open-minded

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