A tribute to the life and work of the late United States Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as an advocate for women’s rights was held on Friday.
The peers and paralegals, junior attorneys who have worked with the judges for a year, recalled Ginsburg’s accomplishments at a rare meeting of the Supreme Court Bar Association, a body of court-trained lawyers.
Featured speakers include Elizabeth Preloger, the 48th US Attorney General and fourth-ranking official in the Department of Justice. Although she now represents the federal government on the Supreme Court, Preloger previously worked for Ginsburg.
“Justice Ginsburg’s accomplishments as a lawyer are extraordinary, legendary,” Preloger told the audience, referring to Ginsburg’s tenure before joining the court.
Ginsburg served as a judge for 27 years. She is the second woman to join the country’s Supreme Court magistracy.
But previously she had advocated for years as a lawyer before the Supreme Court, lobbying to protect women’s rights. She won five of the six cases she filed in court in the 1970s and was finally appointed as a judge in 1993 by then-President Bill Clinton.
“Although Justice Ginsburg’s defense changed an entire area of constitutional law, it never focused solely on abstract legal principles. Decades later, she still remembers each client and the injustices that brought them to court,” Preloger said Friday, citing testimony from his mentor. “lasting commitment” with The Daily American.
But Ginsburg’s death before the 2020 election could be a transformative moment for the Supreme Court, allowing its nine-member caucus to lean more conservatively.
Ginsburg died on September 18 of that year, allowing then-Republican President Donald Trump to take his seat with Justice Amy Coney Barrett, his third appointment to the court.
He gave the conservatives a six-to-three majority on the Supreme Court. The court has upheld several conservative priorities, including the overturning of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, which ended the constitutional right to abortion.
Ginsburg supported abortion rights, though she sometimes criticized the precedent of the 1973 Roe decision.
The late judge’s legal battles and her tenure on the court ultimately made her a pop culture icon. Her life was chronicled in the 2018 documentary RBG, and she was popularly dubbed “Notorious RBG,” a play on the rapper’s name.
Ginsburg collected lace and beaded collars to wear over her black Supreme Court gowns.
“Her life is a quintessential American story,” Preloger said Friday. «He was born into an immigrant family and grew up with modest means. He faced deep hardship and discrimination. Yet through her intelligence, hard work, and her willpower, she not only rose to the top of her profession, but transformed her. .
Ginsburg’s battle with cancer began six years into her Supreme Court tenure, when she underwent surgery for colon cancer. Over the years, she also underwent treatment for pancreatic cancer, the complications of which would eventually take her life.
In the summer before he died at age 87, he confirmed his commitment to remain in the dugout.
“I have often said that I will remain a member of the court as long as I can fully do the job,” he said in a statement. “I can totally do that.”
Ginsburg is buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, not far from the nation’s capital. She was the first woman to reside posthumously in the American capital.
Friday’s ceremony in his honor is part of a tradition dating back to 1822 at the Supreme Court Bar Association. The last justice to be remembered with such a ceremony was the late Antonin Scalia, a conservative united by a shared love for Ginsburg. Opera
