America lost one of its great public servants when Laurence H. Silberman, a judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, passed away on Sunday night at the age of 86. I lost a great mentor and friend. The two were intertwined. Silberman brought loyalty and candor to his advice and friendships by the same means that he arrived at his strongly held conservative opinions: commitment to intellectual clarity as refined by a relentless Socratic method. As his young law clerk, from 1992 to 1993, I was subjected to this unending process of questions and answers more times than I can count (or liked).
Silberman will go down in history as one of the most influential American judges never to serve on the Supreme Court. Most law students will little remember the justices of the Rehnquist or Warren Courts, and will little know the difference between a Henry Friendly (who, like Learned Hand, was also a judge of far more ability and influence than most of the justices who served on the Court in his time) and a Henry Unfriend-Me.
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