Now sworn in, Sotomayor returns to rookie status

WASHINGTON -- For weeks, as she prepared for Senate vetting and then faced questions during her Supreme Court confirmation hearings, Sonia Sotomayor had a battery of administration lawyers ready to guide her through the process.

Now that she has been sworn in, she is leaving behind those aides and beginning a more solitary journey in a separate branch of government, one known for its mystifying tradition, ritual and hierarchy.

"Now, not only don't they help you, they can't help you," says Washington lawyer Jay Jorgensen, a former Supreme Court law clerk and friend of Justice Samuel Alito, who until now was the newest justice. "It's very daunting. In an instant, you're on your own."

Even old judicial hands say it takes time to figure out the place dubbed the "marble palace" and reputed to run as nine little law firms — one for each justice.

Sotomayor's predecessor, newly retired David Souter, has said it was a few years before he felt at ease with the institution's rhythms. Souter had been a state judge for a dozen years but spent only a couple months on a U.S. appeals court before his 1990 appointment. Sotomayor has more experience — six years as a U.S. trial judge and 11 as an appellate judge based in New York.

Yet, any new ninth justice faces challenges in the place that Justice Anthony Kennedy has described as having its own "language and ethic and etiquette."

Take even getting around. The columned building across from the Capitol has four internal courtyards. Some new justices, including Sandra Day O'Connor in 1981, got lost amid the white marble in early days.

Then, there's the emphasis on seniority. In their private meetings on cases, known as "the conference," the justices speak and vote in order of tenure. The most junior justice serves as doorkeeper and secretary, taking notes on the resolution of pending appeals and other business to turn over to the clerk of the court, who keeps the record.

More than at any other federal court, the justices cling to tradition. There are still real elevator operators. When justices send notes to one another or circulate drafts of their rulings for comment, they do so through messengers who carry envelopes from chambers to chambers.