The U.S. Supreme Court employs 10 officers who assist the Court in the performance of its functions. Here we present first-person accounts by four of the officers currently serving the Court: the clerk, the marshal, the reporter of decisions, and the public information officer. The officers discuss their roles in the administration of the Court and their feelings about their jobs. The other court officers are the administrative assistant to the chief justice, the librarian, the director of budget and personnel, the court counsel, the curator, and the director of data systems.

William K. Suter
Clerk

William K. Suter became the 19th clerk of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1991. Previously, he was a career officer and a lawyer in the U.S. Army; he retired with the rank of major general. He is a graduate of Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and the Tulane University School of Law in New Orleans, Louisiana.

As I was completing a career in the Army as a judge advocate and nearing the end of my term of service, I learned that the clerk's position was coming open at the U.S. Supreme Court. I applied and was offered the job two days after my interview. That was 14 years ago, and every day has been a wonderful day since I was appointed the 19th clerk of the Court.

The job of a clerk essentially is to be the conduit between lawyers, litigants, the people, and the Court.

Every court that I know of in the world has a clerk. In Canada, she's called the registrar. In Brazil, he's called the secretary general. All over Europe and Asia, every court has a clerk.

Here at the U.S. Supreme Court, when you come to file a suit, an appeal, or a petition, you don't go to see someone wearing a robe; you see the clerk or one of his or her designees, and they handle the legal paperwork. Here at the Court there are 32 of us, including highly trained paralegals, non-paralegals, and attorneys, who do the work of gathering documents and ensuring that cases are eligible to be heard by the Court and are filed in a timely manner. We prepare the documents so that the justices are able to use them to make decisions regarding the parties.

I also have other ceremonial roles in the court. For example, I attend all full argument sessions of the Court; I'm seated at one end of the bench, and the marshal of the Court is seated on the other end. We're there to provide any assistance the justices might need. Also, when motions are made for lawyers to be admitted to the Supreme Court—to do any business with this Court, you must be a member of our bar—the chief justice entertains and grants the motion, and then I administer the oath of office to new members of the bar.

I've listened to more than 1,000 oral arguments during my time here, and even though lawyers who appear before the Supreme Court have studied and practiced their arguments for hundreds of hours, they're still very nervous because they're facing nine exceptionally bright justices who have read the briefs thoroughly and have prepared dozens of questions.

We try to assist the lawyers so that they're not any more nervous than they are naturally, arguing in front of the Supreme Court, and I've written a booklet to advise counsel on the things I recommend they do—and things I recommend they not do. In any event, the oral argument is lawyering at its best.

The current Supreme Court justices are in their 11th term together, and this Court continues to be driven by two things: tradition and discipline. An example of the tradition of the Court is the morning suit, comprised of tails and striped pants, that the marshal of the Court and I wear whenever we're in Court, and that all clerks and marshals have worn before us. In terms of discipline, there is no such thing as a big case or a small case at the Supreme Court; all cases are important, and no one gets emotionally involved in a case. You do your job.

Being a student of the law for many years, a lawyer, and an American, and always having had great respect for our legal system and for the Supreme Court, just entering this building every morning makes me feel worthwhile. I think we all share a sense of mission that we're here to do the work for the Court to fulfill its constitutional mission for the people.

Pamela Talkin
Marshal

Pamela Talkin is the 10th marshal of the U.S. Supreme Court and the first woman to hold the position. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in Spanish from the City University of New York at Brooklyn College and previously served as the deputy executive director of the U.S. Office of Compliance, a regulatory agency.

I oversee the security, operations, and maintenance of the Supreme Court building. My most visible role is to attend all sessions of the Court to fulfill the responsibility of "crying" the Court when it is in session from October through June. Before court begins, I bang the gavel—I'm the only person in the courtroom with a gavel—introduce the nine justices and open the Court with the official opening cry of the Court, part of which is "Oyez! Oyez! Oyez!"

I am the first woman marshal and only the 10th marshal that the Court has ever had. All of my predecessors have worn formal attire, and when I became marshal, there was no doubt that I would wear the same thing that all the men had always worn when attending sessions of the Court: a formal morning suit with tails, pinstriped slacks, and a vest.

One of my most important jobs is ensuring the security of the Court. I manage the Court's independent police force as they protect the building and provide security for the justices, other court employees, and visitors. About eight weeks after I took the job as marshal, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States occurred. In terms of the safety and security of the Court, that event changed the way we all looked at security and access to public places.

Another one of my main functions is to "attend the Court," which means that I am responsible for escorting the justices to Congress for the State of the Union address, to presidential inaugurations and state funerals, and to other official functions, as well as for ensuring their security at those events. Further, my office coordinates most of the approximately 1,000 lectures, receptions, dinners, and other events that take place annually at the Supreme Court.

Because of the importance of the Supreme Court in this country, and in our constitutional framework, this is a wonderful place to work day-to-day. All the people here are extraordinarily professional, confident, and smart. Each day brings something new, and the Court and the justices are doing something wonderful as part of a long tradition. Every day, tourists visit the court building, which is not only a wonderful physical structure but also an extraordinary symbol of its philosophical and political role.

One of the big surprises to me is that, despite the importance of the justices and some of the other people who work here, the Supreme Court is not a rigidly hierarchical institution. We all have respect for the institution and the institutional positions people occupy, and everyone is quite warm and egalitarian in dealing with one another.

Frank Wagner
Reporter of Decisions

Frank Wagner became the 15th reporter of decisions at the U.S. Supreme Court in 1987. He is a graduate of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and Dickinson School of Law in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Previously, he worked as an attorney and legal editor.

My primary job is to publish all of the legal opinions that the Court hands down in a volume of books called the United States Reports. These volumes are an official publication of the Court.

Before the court issues an opinion, my staff and I carefully examine each opinion for accurate citations and quotations, and for typographical and grammatical errors. We also produce short analytical summaries of the opinions. An attorney and a paralegal in this office read every draft of every opinion in all cases prior to their release.

I'm the 15th reporter of decisions of the Supreme Court since 1789. Alexander Dallas was the first, and he reported from the first moments that the Court conducted business in 1789. He was not a Court employee but an entrepreneur who took careful notes and then sold his notes of what happened at the Court to the public. Today, my position is one of five positions at the Court that has been created by the law.

Any attorney who comes to the Supreme Court to argue a case uses our reports to accurately study what the Court has decided in all cases over the years. Much of the interplay during the oral argument involves the justices asking attorneys to distinguish their argument from what the Court decided in other cases. The difference in the placement of a comma can change the legal meaning of a ruling. If you are arguing a case at the Supreme Court, you must know exactly what the Court has said. Attorneys, judges, and law professors use our reports.

A foreign visitor a few years ago asked me how the Court keeps the press and others from misrepresenting decisions by the Court. The answer is that we prepare official reports of the decisions and disseminate them as quickly as possible in print and on the Internet.

The computerization of Court records has changed my job significantly over the years. Before, people would have to wait at least three or four days to get a paper copy of each individual Court opinion. Today, we take the electronic image of the Court's decision and put it up on our own Web site within a couple of hours of its issuance so that anybody anywhere in the world interested in the case can read for themselves what the Court has said.

Before coming to the Supreme Court, I was a legal editor at a publishing company and edited various sets of law books, including the commercial version of the Supreme Court reports that I produce today. I studied English in college and then attended law school. When I left law school, I wanted a job that would allow to me use both my English studies and my law degree. When this job became available, I applied and was offered what I consider the ultimate legal-editing job. I have been here for 18 years and hope to be here until I retire.

Kathleen Landin Arberg
Public Information Officer

Kathleen Landin Arberg became the fifth public information officer of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1999. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia and previously worked as a motions clerk at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, a paralegal in U.S. Tax Court, and a case manager at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court.

I am the public information officer at the U.S. Supreme Court and the fifth person to hold the position, which was created in 1935. The chief justice at the time realized that the Court opinions were being reported inaccurately by the media, or not reported at all. To correct the problem, the Public Information Office was established to be the source for information about the Court and a point of contact for reporters and the public.
I serve as the Court's spokeswoman. My primary
responsibilities are to educate the public about the history and function of the Court, to release the Court's orders and opinions from my office at the same time that they are announced by the justices in the courtroom, and to facilitate accurate and informed media coverage.

The Supreme Court press corps is comprised of approximately 35 people from 18 news organizations who are assigned to cover the Court on a full-time basis. But for high-profile cases, more than 100 reporters might come to the Court. The Court provides a pressroom for reporters to use. Journalists who cover the Court on a regular basis are given assigned spaces to work. The Court provides broadcast booths suitable for television and radio reporters to use.

Because there are no cameras allowed in the courtroom, artists' sketches are used to illustrate oral arguments. But, after oral arguments, reporters and camera crews gather on the marble plaza in front of the court building to interview the attorneys associated with the case.

Until the opinions are announced by the justices at 10 a.m., no one knows in advance what they will be, so there's an element of suspense. This is especially true near the end of the term when it is typical for the more highly anticipated cases of the term to be decided.

My office organizes the opinions in the order that they will be announced in the courtroom. They are announced in order of the seniority of the justice who wrote the opinion.

We listen to the announcements of the Court on speakers in my office and hand out the opinions one at a time as they are announced in the courtroom. The justice who wrote the opinion briefly summarizes the facts of the case and the Court's decision. Some reporters listen in my office so they can obtain copies of the opinions immediately and start writing stories. Other reporters choose to hear the announcements in the courtroom, where they sit in a section of seats reserved for members of the press.

The Public Information Office never comments on an opinion or attempts to explain an opinion, because the opinions of the Court speak for themselves. We will, however, provide guidance to journalists by pointing them in the direction of resources or people outside the Court who might be helpful, such as the attorneys who argued the case or constitutional law experts.

Photo Credit: Portraits by Barry Fitzgerald, International Information Programs, Department of State

The opinions expressed are those of the authors.