I attended the public schools.And I have happy memories and strong memories of those days and good memories of the good sense and the decency of my friends and my neighbors.

I want to commend the [Federalist] Society for bringing together the best minds from right, left, and center to debate the most pressing legal issues of the day.

After law school, I had the opportunity to clerk for a tremendous judge, Leonard I. Garth, on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, the court to which I was appointed in 1990.

I had the good fortune to begin my legal career as a law clerk for a judge who really epitomized open-mindedness and fairness. He read the record in detail in every single case that came before me; he insisted on scrupulously following precedents.

My parents grew up in poor families where little English was spoken, they both went to college and became teachers. They believed that anything was possible with hard work, and they particularly stressed the importance of education. They instilled that same belief in my sister and me.

I think that the legitimacy of the court would be undermined in any case if the court made a decision based on its perception of public opinion.

My mother is a first generation American. Her father worked in the Roebling Steel Mill in Trenton, New Jersey.And yet my mother became the first person in her family to get a college degree.