Conversations with the Sixth Circuit: An Interview with Judge Danny Boggs

For once, the clerk interviews his judge!

Last week, the Central Kentucky Federalist Society Chapter hosted a fun event. I interviewed my former boss, Judge Danny Boggs of the Sixth Circuit. The clerk interviews the judge!? My, how the tables have turned.

It was a fun discussion. We covered a lot of ground: Judge Boggs's birth in Cuba; growing up in Bowling Green; attending Harvard University; learning at the University of Chicago Law School; working at all levels of Kentucky politics; running, unsuccessfully for Kentucky elected office; working under SG Robert Bork, joining the Reagan administration; being appointed to the Sixth Circuit; establishing the clerk "quiz"; and much more.

Comments

[Libertymike]

Josh, your former boss is the antithesis of the aspirational man envisioned by the framers: he's addicted to the public sector.

[Libertymike]

One of the inherent inconsistencies with originalism is that its troubadors tend to sing in the key of G (for government; they tend to be clerks, or had aspirations of being a clerk; they tend to be in government in some fashion, including judges, assistant district attorneys, and staff attorneys for a government agency; some seek and some achieve electoral success; but few represent the ideal private citizen who makes, produces, and serves upon a voluntary and consensual basis in the private, non-crony sector).

[DaivdBehar]

All they do is slurp coffee, and chat up the secretaries. They are all worthless. Every year one breathes, it destroys $5 million in economic value.

[flashman828]

One notes without much surprise that Judge Boggs managed to avoid one particular sort of government service, despite finishing his formal education in 1968.

[Eric VonSalzen]

Boggs taught for a year after graduating from law school, and Nixon ended the draft in 1969.

[Sarcastr0]

None of the Founders, save Washington, were really known for eschewing the public sector.

[LawTalkingGuy]

And Washington himself wasn't exactly shy about inserting himself into public roles as he thought necessary.

[flashman828]

just about the definition of someone born on third base who thinks he hit a triple (Easterbrook likes to cite the example of how he, Boggs, and Randolph all worked in the SG's office and then became appellate judges under Reagan; it doesn't prove what he thinks it does).

[Eric VonSalzen]

Gosh, are all the commenters who are dissing Danny Boggs here pathetic losers? Because that's sure what you sound like.