Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution [Hardcover]

From Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a glimpse of her journey to the Court and an account of her approach to the Constitution

Since her confirmation hearing, Americans have peppered Justice Amy Coney Barrett with questions. How has she adjusted to the Court? What is it like to be a Supreme Court justice with school-age children? Do the justices get along? What does her normal day look like? How does the Court get its cases? How does it decide them? How does she decide?

In Listening to the Law, Justice Barrett answers these questions and more. She lays out her role (and daily life) as a justice, touching on everything from her deliberation process to dealing with media scrutiny. With the warmth and clarity that made her a popular law professor, she brings to life the making of the Constitution and explains her approach to interpreting its text. Whether sharing stories of clerking for Justice Scalia or walking readers through prominent cases, she invites readers to wrestle with originalism and to embrace the rich heritage of our Constitution.Amy Coney Barrett is an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.Chapter 1

My Life in the Law

On my desk at home, I keep a picture of my great-grandmother's small house. I didn't know my great-grandmother; she died five years before I was born. Nor did I ever visit the house while family lived in it. I saw it for the first time almost ten years ago, when my siblings and I rented a party bus to take my parents on a This Is Your Life tour of New Orleans for my father's seventieth birthday. As lifelong New Orleanians, my parents have a long list of places with special memories, including this house on Green Street, where my mother spent many Sunday afternoons. On a lark, we knocked on the door to see if the owners would let us peek inside. They did.