WASHINGTON – There will be at least one Dallas lawyer at Sonia Sotomayor's 30th law school reunion this fall, and like others who attended Yale with her, he was extra proud Wednesday that she might join the Supreme Court.
"I hope she comes," said Thomas Leatherbury, a Vinson & Elkins partner. "She's really an exceptional person. Very friendly, very bright. Very savvy."
Leatherbury said he's been trading messages with classmates since President Barack Obama picked Sotomayor, a New York federal appellate judge, as his first Supreme Court nominee and, if confirmed, its first Hispanic.
"There's a great number of people who have great admiration and friendship for Sonia and want to do whatever we can," he said.
Like other Yale-trained lawyers in Dallas contacted Wednesday, Leatherbury said Sotomayor has a first-rate legal mind. She even once ruled against his client, Blockbuster, in a dispute over whether a class-action suit belonged in federal or state court.
"It was well-written," said Leatherbury, who also has represented The Dallas Morning News. "I have great respect for her intellect and her accomplishments and her track record. ... She's a great, great pick."
Sotomayor would be the third Yale-trained justice. Clarence Thomas graduated five years ahead of her. Samuel Alito graduated in 1975.
Thomas has recalled his Yale years as a time of isolation and racial tension. Sotomayor's contemporaries recall no ethnic tensions or cliquishness, describing a diverse student body with blacks and Hispanics who excelled, including the up-from-poverty Bronx girl now poised to join the court.
"I grew up in Little Rock, Ark., so it was a strange new world for me. ... I imagine it was for her, too," said Stephen Good, managing partner at Gardere & Wynne, a top Dallas firm, who graduated in 1980 with Anita Hill, the law professor who played a central role in Thomas' confirmation hearing.
Good rejected Sotomayor's assertion – recycled this week by conservatives – that as a Latina, she can make better rulings than white men. But he agreed she would bring a valuable new perspective to the court.
"It's good to have that diversity. ... Unless you been some of those places, I think it's hard to think that way," he said.
With just 160 or so students per law school class, Yale is far smaller than Harvard. Graduates describe a thrillingly intellectual environment mostly devoid of cut-throat jockeying.
Sotomayor's classmates now teach law at Yale, Columbia, Cornell and Harvard. One is dean of the University of Pennsylvania law school, another at Lewis and Clark Law School in Oregon.
"There was an extraordinary collection of extremely brilliant students. ... And even in that extremely competitive environment, she excelled," said Dallas lawyer Frederick Medlin, Class of 1980, who worked with her on Yale's international law journal.
Anthony Stewart, another 1980 graduate and a partner at Jones Day in Dallas who practices international corporate law, said the campus wasn't a hotbed of activism, "but there was a lot of awareness that law is a powerful force in society."
He noted that some liberals have been grumbling, suggesting that Sotomayor will take the bench as a "narrow decider" – a judge who avoids sweeping, controversial rulings. But the Supreme Court is unique, he said, "so it's always rolling the dice. ... She'll be fantastic."
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