When a list of 11 possible Supreme Court nominees for Hillary Clinton made the rounds a few weeks ago, it surprised no one to see Justice Goodwin Liu among the names.

Liu is brilliant and impeccably credentialed: Stanford College, a Rhodes Scholarship, Yale Law School, a clerkship with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a Biglaw stint (O’Melveny & Myers), and a tenured professorship at Berkeley Law, all before assuming his current position as an associate justice of the California Supreme Court. He’s the right age: currently 45, turning 46 next month. He’s diverse: if appointed to SCOTUS, he would be the nation’s first Asian-American justice.

Judicial junkies may recall that Liu’s prior nomination to the Ninth Circuit got filibustered by Senate Republicans back in 2011, based in part on controversial writings and speeches from his days as a legal academic. But since joining the California Supreme Court in 2011, Justice Liu has worked hard, written lots of unanimous opinions, emerged as a SCOTUS feeder judge (despite being on a state rather than federal court), and generally stayed out of trouble.

But could opposition to a Liu nomination come from quarters other than Republicans (who some predict will lose control of the Senate anyway)? Here’s a report from the San Francisco Chronicle:

Another high-level matrimonial split has hit the Hillary Clinton campaign, this one involving the parting of top adviser Ann O’Leary and her husband, California Supreme Court Justice Goodwin Liu — who sources have confirmed is now dating his onetime law student, San Francisco Supervisor Jane Kim. O’Leary was recently named co-executive director of the Clinton-Kaine presidential transition team, with speculation that she may be headed for a job in the White House as a deputy chief of staff if Clinton is elected.

Yikes — with such a strong bench of SCOTUS talent on the Democratic side, a marital mess involving a leading Clinton adviser spells big trouble for Liu’s chances.

On the bright side for Liu, Ann O’Leary is taking a classy approach to the whole situation:

In a joint statement to us Tuesday, O’Leary and Liu said, “It is true that we made the difficult decision to separate. We continue to have respect for each other and provide mutual support in our lives. Our priority is, as it has always been, our shared commitment to being the best parents we can be to our children.” In May, O’Leary texted friends, stating that “Goodwin and I separated because he is in a relationship with Jane Kim.” However, when pressed on the subject Tuesday, O’Leary sent us a separate statement that avoided blaming Kim. “As many people around us know, Goodwin and I had a good marriage for many years, but we have struggled in the past few,” she said. “Jane Kim is not the reason my marriage is ending.”

Jane Kim, who’s running for the California State Senate against fellow Supervisor Scott Wiener, took a more hostile approach to the media. Her campaign manager, Eric Jaye, complained to the Chronicle about its “prurient interest masquerading as political reporting.”

With all due respect to Jane Kim and Eric Jaye, the Liu-O’Leary-Kim love triangle is newsworthy. Anyone who has spent time in D.C. will tell you that relationships drive appointments — including appointments to the federal courts and the highest court in the land, the U.S. Supreme Court. So although this news might be on the salacious side, it has significant consequences: Justice Liu’s chances of a lifetime appointment to SCOTUS in a Clinton Administration just dropped precipitously.

Some might say in response: if Goodwin Liu is the best-qualified candidate, why should his marital issues with Ann O’Leary stop him from getting nominated? Could it even strengthen the case for his candidacy? If President Clinton picks Liu despite his separation from a close adviser of hers, the Democrats can argue that he truly was picked on merit.

Alas, for better or worse, that’s not the way things work in the real world — or in Washington, D.C. As noted, President Clinton will have many strong contenders to choose from when picking a justice (or justices, plural, given the ages of the Court’s senior members). She’ll be pressured from all sides, by supporters of this potential nominee or that one, and a shortlister’s backers will matter. Hillary Clinton is famously loyal — not just to her own husband with a wandering eye, but also to longtime advisers like Ann O’Leary, who served as her legislative director back when Clinton was a U.S. Senator from New York. So O’Leary’s separation from Liu means that he probably just lost his biggest backer in the West Wing.

As someone who overlapped with Goodwin Liu in law school, I must confess that I’m a little surprised by this turn of events. At Yale Law School — especially in the Pacific Islander, Asian, and Native American Law Students Association (PANA), as it was called back then (it’s now APALSA) — Liu was “that guy.” He was brilliant, hardworking, handsome, and successful. Everything he said or did seemed perfect.

One classmate told me a story about the final exam for a class that she was in with Goodwin Liu. This was back in the 1990s, and law students were just beginning to make the transition to taking exams on computers. Students who wanted to take their exams electronically had to go to a computer lab, type up their exam responses, and then print the documents in hard copy using a printer in the corner. The hard-copy exams then got turned into the proctors.

My classmate finished her exam and went over to the printer to retrieve it. She had written six pages and felt good about her response. When she arrived at the printer, Goodwin — who had finished before her, of course — was collecting the print-out of his exam. He picked up page one, two, three… and the pages kept on coming. My friend counted them: all in all, Goodwin wrote twenty pages, blowing her six pathetic pages out of the water.

So in some ways it’s surprising to see Goodwin Liu, who has up to this point lived A Perfect Life, jeopardizing his SCOTUS chances for the sake of romance. If the Goodwin Liu from his Yale Law School days could see the Goodwin Liu of today, separating from his well-connected wife to romance a former student of his, he’d probably be horrified. A graduate of YLS doesn’t let marital troubles get in the way of professional ambition — just ask Bill and Hillary Clinton.

On the other hand, if you’ve been on this planet long enough — or if you happened to watch the latest season of Girls, and recall Hannah Horvath’s conversation with her college “frenemy,” successful Brooklyn writer Tally Schifrin — you’ve probably learned that A Perfect Life isn’t necessarily the happiest one.

Clinton adviser, state justice in marital split — enter Jane Kim [San Francisco Chronicle]

Earlier: Hillary Clinton’s Supreme Court Shortlist: 11 SCOTUS Possibilities

Who Will Obama Nominate To Replace Scalia — A Gambler’s Guide

Congratulations to Justice Goodwin Liu!

A Conservative’s Worst Nightmare: Justice Goodwin Liu?

David Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at dlat@abovethelaw.com.