Supremely

The boys from Duke reminisced about their days of camping out for basketball tickets. I, who had never camped out for sporting events or concerts or Star Wars, so much as actually went camping (more accurately, backpacking), rolled my eyes at their fond remembrances of "privation" and "hardship" and shivered deeper into the cocoon of my mummy bag.

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I gazed at the Capitol, brilliantly lit for nighttime, contemplating its architectural majesty, and asked myself, for the umpteenth time, why I was sitting on the street in front of the Supreme Court in the dark. In the winter.

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Everyone was too wide awake (and cold) to actually sleep, so there was much fellowship and friendly chatter. There were cookies galore, hot tea, chocolate, and coffee. The problem? The nearest bathroom being three blocks away, in the cold dark, was more than enough incentive not to indulge.

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The Capitol police provided some much-needed entertainment. They pulled over a vehicular miscreant right in front of us, and the flashing lights, car search, and consultations with several other policefolk held our attention for the better part of an hour. It also served as a comfort to know that were we so well protected, here on the Capitol campus, in the middle of the night. There were policefolk on every block!

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Breaking dawn was a much-anticipated and heart-warming sight. Unfortunately, at that point, the line became standing-room only (no more camp chairs!) in the SC courtyard. Glad we wore the comfy shoes! In fact, I was wearing my entire ensemble of skiing gear (minus the bibs, thought I did think about it). At least it got used this year.

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The short trek to Union station to stow our gear, clean up, change, and get breakfast was jolly and anticipatory and seemed quite long, because of the sleeping bag, camp chair, change of clothes, food, books, and drinks I was carrying.

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The second line (yes, you stand in the first line to get tieckts to hold your spot in another line) was slightly less fun. While we looked much better (and less like extremely well-heeled homeless people), the sun was out, and we could triumph by holding the entire head of the line, business clothes = real shoes = pinchy when standing/walking for a few hours. As the line grew and snaked back down the street, we felt marginally better about camping out.

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Lawyers enter in the secret, side door, but the waitin' public gets to use the front doors. The front doors of the SC are impressive, like all the other grandiose public buildings in town, and walking up those steps and passing by the pillars of JUSTICE gave me a genuine shiver.

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Seriously, you can only bring in a pen and a pad of paper. That's it. Go back to the end of the line.

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The chairs were small, hard, and placed in extremely close quarters. As in, we of the broad shoulders were getting to know each other very, very well. The public sat around the room in the chairs of discomfort, while the pews filled with lawyers and ticket-holding invitees. The soaring walls, heavy red drapes, and mosaiced ceilings could not disguise the solemnity of the room. The uniformed "behaviour police" (they b*tchslapped talkers, confiscated illegal electronic devices, and prepared to evict any sleepers) only added to the impression. The elongated bench, with the nine seats set and waiting, dominated the visual landscape.

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I fully admit that I could not previously recite the list of SC justices, but now I know them by seat order. How's that for learning something?!

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They say that it is an honor and a privilege for a lawyer to argue a case before the SC. While I believe that in my head, after witnessing the piranha (or better yet, terrier-like worrying) attack style of the interested justices (the uninterested justices may have well been asleep, for all they participated), I can't imagine that it isn't also one of the most nerve-wracking and vomit-inducing experiences of a lawyer's entire career. Fun to watch, painful to play.

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Well, now I know personally that these are some of the sharpest, smartest people in the land. With some of the thickest accents.

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I can say that it was terribly, terribly exciting to be in the room when some of the issues we'd been working on for years were potentially being decided. The justices might not have known everything we knew, but they knew enough to drill down to the core questions with breathtaking speed accuracy and we got to be there as (a tiny piece of judicial) history was made. It was an amazing witnessing experience.

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Half of us got out at the break in arguments, and the other half stayed in. We departees stood outside in our now-familiar courtyard for yet another hour. At least it was sunny!

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We gushed at each other, bonded through (mild) adversity, about the coolest work day EVER.