That’s the subtitle of my new Confirmation Tales post, which illustrates the role that serendipity can play in judicial selection. The many of us who admire D.C. Circuit judge David Sentelle and Fourth Circuit judge Paul Niemeyer should be grateful for a chance encounter at a symposium in North Carolina in the mid-1970s and for a conversation at a wedding.
Over the past several decades, as the conservative legal movement has flourished and as communications technology has advanced, it has become much easier for conservative judge-pickers to identify quality candidates. But there is still an irreducible role for plain old luck.