I recently breezed through Jeffrey Toobin’s new book, The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court.

Hmmm. The Secret World? Perhaps I am too much of a Con Law nerd, but not much about this book was secret or an inside account, it read more as a review for me. Which on one hand was disappointing, but on the other hand made me happy to know that the six-figure education I obtained for myself has been put to some use.

Basically, this book outlined my Constitutional Law Coming of Age, the Supreme Court as I know it.

Starting with little Jennie Smith keeping mental note of current events by watching World News Tonight during Middle School. And then at my H.S. graduation in 1992 when the Court decided Lee v. Weisman days before commencement.

Next came, Smithj2 at Allegheny College falling in LOVE with the multi-colored course handouts from Professor Seddig. Oh how much I LOVED all his classes in Constitutional Law. (And how much I enjoyed reading Scalia’s opinions.)

“For Scalia, the Lemon test epitomized everything he loathed about modern constitutional law, and about O’Connor’s jurisprudence in particular. “Like some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad after being repeatedly killed and buried, Lemon stalks our Establishment Clause jurisprudence once again, frightening the little children and school attorney’s of Center Moriches Union Free School District,” he wrote memorably in a concurring opinion in Lamb’s Chapel.”

You either loved Professor Seddig or hated him. Two of my very good, intelligent friends took their first and last class with Professor Seddig their Freshman year and decided law school was not going to be for them. I on the other hand, found true love.

After college, my logical conclusion to a Political Science degree and my Senior Comp (which was basically the history and prediction of the exact outcome held by the Court in Zelman V. Simmons-Harris in 2002) was taking my upper-level law school seminar studying the political conservative movement that created the Federalist Society and how it influenced the Court. Did I mention that there are very few Con Law classes offered in Law School?

To outsiders looking in for the first or second time, The Nine gives an excellent overview of the Justices and their individual philosophies. And since, through the years I’ve found that a majority of the time I agree with Justice O’Connor’s judicial philosophy, it was nice to see Toobin focus so much on her evolution on the Court. But again, I didn’t really learn anything new. The book also offered a nice detailed account of the most current events of the Court including Bush v. Gore and the Roberts and Alito nominations. (I didn’t know that the now Chief, hung out in Florida back in 2000.)

The Nine DID inspire me to get back into the swing of my Con Law nerd self and I found myself ordering from Paperback Swap Lazy B and The Majesty of the Law. (They’re sitting next to my bed at this very moment.) I’m a nerd, what can I say?

A good read. And easy to follow for the non-nerds.