HOW GENDER-BIASED ORAL ARGUMENT INTERRUPTIONS OPENED THE DOOR FOR CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS TO BE A TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADER

INTRODUCTION In a 2021 NYU Law School conversation with Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Justice was asked whether she observed higher levels of interruptions of female Justices, relative to their male colleagues, during the Supreme Court's oral arguments. With their Article Supreme Court Interruptions and Interventions: The Changing Role of the Chief Justice, Tonja Jacobi and Matthew Sag provide analysis on this very point, indicating that Sotomayor's anecdotal observations are indeed empirically supported.4 In Supreme Court Interruptions and Interventions, Jacobi and Sag show that Chief Justice Roberts increased his interventions during oral arguments to help his colleagues finish their questions.5 The Jacobi and Sag study also reveals compelling evidence that the Chief s actions as "referee," perhaps paired with the institutional changes he's made to reduce the "free-for-all" nature of oral arguments, have successfully stopped female Justices from receiving the lion's share of interruptions from fellow Justices.6 While there is room for further empirical inquiry into the nature and extent of Roberts' effect on altering gendered interruptions-ensuring that it was Roberts' efforts and not other factors like case salience, Justice ideology, the changing composition of the Court across time, or the behavior of the advocates during oral arguments that caused the observed changes-the Jacobi and Sag piece provides a powerful first examination in this context. U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee. "20 Because transformational leaders foster employee buy-in to this altered vision for the organization as well as change their own daily behaviors as a model for their employees, they are better able to accomplish organizational change in attitudes, beliefs, and outcomes.21 Research indicates that transformational leadership fosters increased levels of collegial job satisfaction and organizational effectiveness.22 Organizations with transformational leadership have "cultures that are hospitable and conducive to creativity, problem solving, risk taking, and experimentation.