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“In The Judge’S Heart:” Rethinking The Role Of Empathy In The Supreme Court Nomination And Confirmation Process, Louis H. Guard

Cornell Law School J.D. Student Research Papers

This paper addresses President Obama’s standard of “empathy” as a qualification for potential nominees to the Supreme Court. The paper seeks to germinate answers to questions surrounding the meaning and purpose of empathy as a quality for Supreme Court Justices and ways empathy might be effectively promoted moving forward. Working within the narrow but recent line of scholarship on empathy this paper supports the position that empathy is both a desirable and necessary quality for nominees to the Court. However, the paper and research also suggests that empathy should not be the only major defining quality considered by the president …