Irving R. Kaufman

Courtrooms contain every symbol of authority that a set designer could imagine. Everyone stands up when you come in. You wear a costume identifying you as, if not quite divine, someone special.

The Supreme Court's only armor is the cloak of public trust; its sole ammunition, the collective hopes of our society.

The judge is forced for the most part to reach his audience through the medium of the press whose reporting of judicial decisions is all too often inaccurate and superficial.

The judicial system is the most expensive machine ever invented for finding out what happened and what to do about it.

To the extent that the judicial profession becomes the daily routine of deciding cases on the most secure precedents and the narrowest grounds available, the judicial mind atrophies and its perspective shrinks.