foreign law as being a little bit, you know, the picking and choosing element of it as being outside a tradition of american constitutionalism. >> so would you say that even in situations where, you know, out of the almost 200 countries in the world, 196 of them have one view, and we're among the four? or does it matter? >> well, i mean, i think that's something to notice, but it's not necessarily dispositive of the question that you're answering. >> sure. sure, sure. do you think lawyers do a good job of calling international materials to the court's attention? or do you think they're wary of doing so? >> i think that you do get a significant amount of information about foreign practices.

it's often not in the parties' briefs, but there will often be amicus briefs that do this. >> yeah. so, again, a little bit on outside sources. our friend on the seventh circuit who i believe is not here tonight -- so i get to say this -- judge richard posener, has recently published a book called "divergent paths" in which he argues that the a academy and the judiciary are rapidly drifting apart. so my question for you, justice stevens, is whether you think he's right, whether you agree with chief justice roberts that people in the legal academy are writing arcane and useless things like the state of the law in 17th century bulgaria, if there were a bulgaria at the time, which there wasn't -- [laughter] so, basically, are legal scholars just out there in their own corner useless to you, or did you find academic writing helpful sometimes?

>> well, academic writing covers an awful broad subject. [laughter] and i do share john roberts' view that very often the law reviews are filled up with what happened in bulgaria rather than what happened in hyde park. [laughter] so i understand that. i think there's a lot of legal writing that is the product of people getting, trying to get tenure and writing interesting stuff. [laughter] and so i do think there's merit to the notion. but there's also -- you stumble across some awfully interesting and important stuff when you just go through the law reviews. but i, it's sort of like anything else in the law; you do the best you can with what's available, but there's a tremendous variety. to answer that question in a simple way.

>> i think that might be the theme of this conversation. you do the best you can with what's available, right? [laughter] >> that's exactly right. >> it's a nice, modest theme, isn't it? [laughter] so, justice kagan, obviously, at the harvard law school people did write these sort of meta-theory things. not quite as much as yale, but -- [laughter] they do that. i've looked at the table of contents of many harvard law review and thought -- >> [inaudible] they don't do any of that? >> no, none. in some future life maybe i'll read this, but i don't have time today. so what would your advice be to people who are aspiring legal academics? what kinds of things should they be writing? >> i think it's a mistake to think that all legal academics have to be writing for the court. i think that it's great that there are some legal academics in some fields who do think about the courts, and i often -- not always, but sometimes -- find things that are useful in

law reviews. but, you know, as a dean if i were to say to my faculty this is your audience and i would say you've got to be writing to the supreme court of the united states or to the appellate courts of the united states, i would think that would not be a smart thing to tell a faculty. there are a lot of different places in this country where law gets made. so some fact all the city, you know, might -- faculty, you know, might think about writing to legislatures, and some faculty might be thinking about writing to practicing lawyers. and some faculty might think about writing to other departments in a university which is also an important thing for law schools, to be in touch with historians and to be in touch can economists and to be in touch with sociologists and so forth. so, you know, different faculty have different audiences, and i think that that's a good and appropriate thing for law schools. and i don't think, you know,

idea that there's this divergence between law schools and the legal profession, i mean, that's not a new thing, right? people have been talking about this for 30 years. judge edwards wrote -- >> he did. >> -- 25 years ago, something like that? >> right. >> i don't actually think it's gotten worse, i think it might have gotten better. so i think it's good that law schools are diverse places where people write very different kinds of things to different audiences. and i think within that very diverse field there are people who will think about the kinds of questions that we have to decide and who will write some useful things in that respect. so i think this is not a kind of woe is me, isn't legal academia falling short. i guess, you know, they shouldn't be clerks for law judges, right? they shouldn't think of their jobs that way, i don't think.

>> do you find empirical legal research helpful, or do you think there's enough of it going on by anybody? by sociologists, by political scientists, by law faculty? >> you know, speaking not in my capacity really as a judge, but when i was a law dean and thought about who to hire, i mean, i think some of the most interesting work in the academy is empirical in nature now. people are coming up with some fascinating things about how the legal system works in various fields. >> yeah. i think it's very interesting too. so, justice stevens, your memoir, "five chiefs," is something that we've all enjoyed reading, and it's something that, i think, makes the court accessible to a much wider audience. and justice sotomayor wrote her memoir for that. but it raises the question, um, how because an individual justice or how does the court communicate with the broader

public? is it just through its opinions? is it through speeches? is it through books? are there limits that you would recognize? >> well, of course, the principal method of communication is through opinions, and i think that's how it should be. i think, of course, i wrote my book after i'd retired, but i think sonya's book is really a very good read. you learn about an important person and the different ways in which her life has been influenced by her experiences, and i think a very valuable book to read. but there are others and, of course, nino has written on statutory construction and all the valuable stuff in that book. but your -- the judge's primary job is to decide cases, and the writing -- the extracurricular writing is a function of how much time might be available for that activity.

and, of course, everybody has different, their different problems in that regard. but the more writing, i think, is fine. >> so you mentioned at the very outset justice byron white who famously, when he left the court, burned all of his papers and backgrounds and said my opinions are what i had to say. that was what i'm leaving behind. is that what you plan to do, or is that -- >> no, i've already given my papers to the library of congress. and i think they should be available in due course. >> did you keep everything? >> did i keep -- i kept a lot of stuff. >> yeah. >> an amazing amount. [laughter] i just recently, i'm doing another book right now, and i found i have my yellow original draft of chevron -- >> oh, my goodness. [laughter] wow.

>> and i'm not sure anybody wants to try to read my handwriting. >> oh, you'd be surprised. [laughter] so let me, i realize we should wrap this up, but let me ask both of you -- i'll first ask justice kagan, you know, what do you do for fun? and what would your advice -- if you have any time for fun. i hope you do. and what advice would you give to young lawyers today? >> yeah. well, we have great summers, so i work awfully hard from, you know, mid september through the end of june, but we have these terrific summers. so we have some fun. what do -- gosh. i like to travel in the summer. i'm a baseball fan. >> uh-huh. >> i go to lots of movies. >> excellent. >> do a fair amount of just, you know, reading novels and things like that. so i don't know, for me it's really important even during the term, it's really important to be able to get away sometimes

and to refresh. i suspect it's like that for most people, right? you just have to give yourself a little bit of down time. >> uh-huh. and what about for the young people who have tremendous pressures from their law firms, rumor has it. [laughter] but do it anyway. >> i think so. >> what about you, justice stevens? you were telling me about swimming. >> well -- >> i started learning to play golf, so i'm really interested -- [laughter] >> well, i do like to swim, and i love to swim in the ocean in florida provided i have big, strong person nearby to help me yet out of the ocean. -- get out of the ocean. [laughter] which is a problem as you get older. but there's a vast difference between the spare time after you've retired and when you're on the court. because when you're on the court, you really have very little spare time during the term.

now, of course, i'm to not sure i can speak in the present circumstances because your workload's about half of what -- [laughter] i really can't -- >> well, you know, believe me, i know about this because when i clerked on the court, there were about -- >> back in the old days. >> now there are about 80. so i always tease my clerks it's this kind of like, oh, when i was young, we'd trek 25 miles to school barefoot, you know? [laughter] so i always feel like that. i feel like, gosh, i know what it was to work and you don't, you guys don't. >> no, that's true. you were too, diane. [laughter] you were a little earlier. when it was even heavier. >> 150 cases -- >> you did it year in and year out. >> the justice had several clerks so, yes, it was probably worse being a justice. >> it's a serious problem during the term.

all the world -- one of the questions that sometimes comes up, well, now you stopped hearing arguments, so you apparently have nothing to do. but the truth of the matter is the busiest time of the year is the time after -- >> right now. >> right. [laughter] after you finish hearing arguments. and sometimes you produce opinions like the one that came out this morning that are totally unintelligible. [laughter] >> i'm glad you didn't write that one, you know? [laughter] >> it's not just the opinion, it's the whole case is unintelligible. in fact, it's a case in which i thought the perfect solution on this case would have been we have eight justices, let's four go one way and four the other, and we wouldn't have created the monstrosity that we did. >> tell us what you really think. [laughter]

>> well, i should thank both of you so much -- >> i say -- [applause] i'm sorry. i'm stepping on your -- >> you're stepping on my close. >> this is not the first time that john has told me what he really thinks. [laughter] john and i have offices that are pretty near to each other, and i do get visits and messages from him when i vote the wrong way, you know? [laughter] >> i'm glad he's keeping you on your toes. >> she hasn't had a message like that since i can remember. [laughter] >> well, now i will finish -- >> okay, please. >> thank you so much to both of you for coming, for participating, for sharing your thoughts with us. we are really privileged to have you here. >> thank you. [applause]

[inaudible conversations] >> tonight on c-span2, a senate hearing on efforts to stop terrorism in sub-saharan africa. then a hearing on provisions of the foreign intelligence surveillance act that are set to expire next year. and later, a preview of the president's upcoming trip to hiroshima, japan, from today's white house briefing. well, polls in west virginia closed about a half an hour ago, major news organizations

reporting that republican donald trump winning the primary there with the primary also going on in nebraska. polls closing there in about an hour or so. we'll keep you posted on results. bernie sanders, meanwhile, expected to win that west virginia primary. he's in oregon tonight speaking to supporters in salem, oregon. we'll have live coverage of that at 10:00 eastern x that'll be over on c-span. earlier today the senate foreign relations committee held a hearing on counterterrorism efforts in sub-saharan africa. they heard testimony from officials representing the state department and the united nations. senator bob corker of tennessee is the chair. it's two and a half hours. [inaudible conversations]