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Open Chambers?, Richard W. Painter

Michigan Law Review

Edward Lazarus has written the latest account of what goes on behind the marble walls of the Supreme Court. His book is not the first to selectively reveal confidential communications between the Justices and their law clerks. Another book, Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong's The Brethren2 achieved that distinction in 1979. Closed Chambers: The First Eyewitness Account of the Epic Struggles Inside the Supreme Court, however, adds a new twist. Whereas The Brethren was written by journalists who persuaded former law clerks to breach the confidences of the Justices, Lazarus was himself a law clerk to Justice Harry Blackmun. Closed …