 JEFFREY L. FISHER, associate professor at Stanford Law School and clerk from 1998 to 1999

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JUSTICE STEVENS’S energy amazed me, especially because he always seemed relaxed and unhurried. He’d come to chambers first thing in the morning with a draft of an opinion, which he had banged out or dictated at home earlier that day. And it was never a breezy one-pager in the style favored by his predecessor, William O. Douglas. Whether a majority opinion, a concurrence or a dissent, it would be thoughtful and detailed, complete with footnotes. He would have also gotten in a few sets of tennis that morning.

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He loved to come into the clerks’ office to brainstorm about pending cases, delighting in the facts and law of every one, no matter how obscure. One time, a clerk for another justice happened to be there and stayed for the discussion. Later, he gave Justice Stevens his highest accolade: “That was like talking to another clerk.”

In those days, Justice Stevens hired only two clerks, even though most justices hired four, and even though the court decided twice as many cases as today. He didn’t see the need for more help. And, of course, he was one of the few justices who wouldn’t join the “cert. pool,” the collective divvying up of the court’s 7,000 annual requests for review. Better to look at all 7,000 ourselves.

Maybe the best example of Justice Stevens’s energy came a few years ago. I and some other former clerks were planning a clerks’ reunion with Justice Stevens, and one suggested a tennis tournament. Justice Stevens didn’t approve. “Why not?” asked the organizer.

“Most of the clerks aren’t very good,” he responded. He didn’t want to waste his time playing with hackers. He was 85 at the time.

 CLIFF SLOAN, lawyer in Washington and clerk from 1985 to 1986

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EARLY in my clerkship, a man was scheduled to be executed late at night, and it was my turn to keep Justice Stevens posted on any final appeals.

As I would soon learn, the last-minute claims this petitioner was raising were common features of capital cases. They had been raised and litigated before, and they presented no novel question of law that would make the case a likely candidate for further review. Nonetheless, the man was about to be executed, and so I called Justice Stevens at home and woke him up.