Courteousness

A CBC interviewer once asked Winnipeg lawyer Jack London, who often commented on legal issues, what qualities make a good judge. "Politeness" topped London's list. This struck me as apt. People who wield great authority should have the grace to do so without lording their stature over those whose lives they will rule upon. In this morning's New York Times,  Jeffrey L. Fisher, a Stanford law professor who once clerked for soon-to-retire US Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, recalls Stevens’s trademark courteousness: During William Rehnquist’s tenure as chief justice, a lawyer was arguing in the court for the first...