The anti-casual justice

One of the many perks of clerking for Justice Scalia was an invitation to his annual law-clerk reunion. For more than a quarter-century, the format was absolutely unchanged: a blacktie dinner in the West Conference Room of the Supreme Court on the first Saturday night in May. Champagne and sirloin. Spouses or announced fiance(e)s only. Presentation of a dark green leather-bound volume containing a previous Term's Scalia opinions, accompanied by a dramatic reading of some of the highlights by one of the current clerks. Witty toasts, and a wry -- if necessarily incomplete -- description of the current Term by the Justice. The reunion fit the man. In a society in which it is fashionable to be casual, Antonin Scalia was not. Not for him salespeople who call complete strangers by their first names or churchgoers who dress in shorts and flip-flops. Both in his life and in his jurisprudence, Antonin Scalia was an anti-casual man.