Relaxing in a Washington, D.C., teahouse, calmly sipping a cup of green tea, Brett McGurk '96 (CLAS) hardly looks like someone who has not finished packing for a trip to Italy that is just hours away. Perhaps when you have worked for the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, a certain measure of unflappability has become second nature.

The moment surely is not as nerve-wracking as his initial meeting with Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist in the winter of 1999. Having spied the University of Connecticut on his potential law clerk's resumé, the chief justice quizzed McGurk on the five smallest states, based on area (Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey, New Hampshire). Imagine the butterflies in the stomach when McGurk was asked to write the first draft of an opinion for the most powerful jurist in the land; or when traces of anthrax turned up at a mail facility serving the Supreme Court, and he was placed on a 10-day regimen of antibiotics.

No, all things considered, taking time to talk about a job he loved and an institution he reveres - with or without a transatlantic flight looming on the horizon - would prove to be no hardship.

In fact, McGurk seems to relish talking about his year-long tenure as a law clerk to the nation's top jurist. Although not lacking confidence, McGurk is modest for someone who has clerked in the nation's highest court. Rather, he seems to enjoy the simple matter of talking about the court, about the men and women behind it, and about the court's impact.

The fact that McGurk had never set foot in the halls of the Supreme Court building before arriving for his interview in 1999 is about the only surprising detail in his rapid ascent to his clerkship on the high court. When he was at UConn, political science seminars taught by Bob Gilmore and George Cole sparked an interest in government and law that has influenced every step he's taken since leaving Storrs in 1996.

"If not for UConn, I wouldn't have the clerkship," McGurk says. "UConn taught me how to think. I was very lackluster until I was accepted into the Honors Program in political science. It was very challenging and my colleagues were as bright as anyone I've come across before or since. I am forever indebted."

At UConn, McGurk was Phi Beta Kappa, a graduate of the honors program, an R.O.T.C. cadet, a University Scholar and recipient of the Katherine Pardee Prize for Outstanding Thesis in the area of political science. He attended Columbia Law School, where he was the senior editor of the Columbia Law Review, and had already nailed down consecutive clerkships on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York when he joined a multitude of applicants for one of only 35 clerkship spots at the Supreme Court.

"My experience put me in the hunt for a spot," McGurk says, "but after that, so much luck was involved. It was like winning the lottery."

Chief Justice Rehnquist can be assisted by as many as five law clerks, but generally chooses only three. Getting in the door was hard enough; making the final cut, McGurk faced even slimmer odds. Yet with a flawless resumé, impeccable references, and solid rapport with the chief justice - McGurk passed the geography pop quiz by naming four correct states - the young lawyer learned a week after his interview that he would be moving to Washington for the 2001-2002 session.

McGurk's reverence for the man he affectionately refers to as "The Chief" is palpable. Himself a former Supreme Court clerk (for Justice Robert Jackson in 1952-53), the chief justice made sure his clerks had significant assignments, McGurk says, but he also made time to get to know each one personally. An avid tennis player, the septuagenarian jurist would play doubles with his clerks once a week.

Each morning, Chief Justice Rehnquist would meet with his clerks to dole out assignments and discuss pertinent topics of the day. It was the clerks' responsibility to wade through the numerous petitions for the Supreme Court to review a lower court decision, known as a writ of certiorari; write a memo on the merits of each case; and make a recommendation on whether the Court should grant or deny the petition. There were also briefs to be reviewed and discussed.

Occasionally the ultimate task would arise: drafting an opinion for the chief justice.

Brett McGurk, left, with the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, William H. Rehnquist. McGurk served as a law clerk for the chief justice.

"Without a doubt, one of the most rewarding things I have ever done," McGurk says. When the occasion arose, Chief Justice Rehnquist would hand a clerk notes from conference with the other justices and would sketch out a brief road map on writing the opinion. The clerk then had 10 days to complete a first draft, at which point the chief justice and the clerks would revise the opinion until it was in final form. "Nothing leaves chambers until he's happy," McGurk says with a slight smile.

Yet all the experience and prep work couldn't prepare McGurk - or the Supreme Court, for that matter - for what would unfold on September 11, 2001.

McGurk first learned about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in his daily morning meeting with the chief justice. For security reasons, clerks do not have Internet access on their desktop computers; McGurk remembers grabbing a portable radio and donning headphones to learn about what was transpiring in New York and across the Potomac River at the Pentagon. Rumors began to fly around the building that the court was a target, but they couldn't evacuate immediately - legal issues still needed to be dealt with before the building could be emptied. The next day, "we went back to work," McGurk says. "It was agreed that the best thing was to carry on as before.

"I felt a sense of proud defiance," he says. "It may sound corny, but there was something symbolic in the fact that even 9/11 hadn't stopped this country - or the court - from going about its business."

Then, on October 14, a letter laced with anthrax was opened in the office of then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, which is across the street from the Supreme Court building. "We were all thinking it was a matter of time before some thing happened to us," McGurk says. Less than two weeks after the Daschle letter tested positive for anthrax, the Supreme Court building was ordered shut down for anthrax testing.

All Supreme Court employees were placed on an antibiotic regimen, mail service was disrupted, and oral arguments were temporarily relocated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, but "the Court didn't miss a beat," McGurk says with more than a touch of pride in his voice.

That sense of pride seems to be reflected in McGurk when he talks about the Supreme Court. "It's an awe-inspiring institution," McGurk says. "Think about it. The Supreme Court takes only cases that divide lower courts, presenting very difficult questions. Often there are no objectively right answers to those questions, yet the Court has a responsibility to provide answers, and it does so through genuine intellectual debate and dialogue. It also remains a human institution, managing to separate sincere disagreements from personal relationships."

McGurk swirls what's left of the tea in his porcelain cup and ponders where his career is headed. He would like to return to government some day (his award-winning thesis addressed the social ramifications of gated communities), but first there are other avenues he would like to explore.

As one of four recipients of the prestigious Temple Bar scholarship, McGurk was selected to spend a month in London, where he would shadow barristers and serve as a marshal for a High Court Justice as part of an intensive program to learn about the English legal system. An associate position with the international law firm Kirkland & Ellis also awaits, but first there is Italy.

He must go finish packing, but he is still talking about the Supreme Court. Asked whether he would like to be a judge some day, McGurk smiles and says that he thinks it's something he would enjoy. And the high court? He won't take the bait.

"I was honored to serve as a clerk on the Supreme Court of the United States," he says, leaving out an important piece of information: Three of the nine sitting justices also once served as law clerks at the Supreme Court.

UConn's Supreme Trio in Hartford
For students seeking to meet the demands of studying the law, any aspirations about some day reaching the highest levels of the legal profession are perhaps only a daydream.

Connecticut Supreme Court Justices Joette Katz '77 J.D., Richard N. Palmer '77 J.D., and Christine S. Vertefeuille '75 J.D.

"It was something I never really considered as a law student," says Richard N. Palmer '77 J.D., one of three UConn School of Law alumni who serve as associate justices of the Connecticut Supreme Court. "I think virtually every day how fortunate I am to discharge the responsibilities of this office."

Justice Palmer, along with Joette Katz '77 J.D. and Christine S. Vertefeuille '75 J.D. hold three of the seven seats on the state's highest court, making decisions that ultimately may affect the lives of all the state's citizens.

All three of the justices remain actively involved with the School of Law, either as guest lecturers or participants in Moot Court sessions with students. Justice Katz previously served as a member of the faculty and also as a member of a dean's search committee. Justice Palmer served on the search committee that selected Dean Nell Jessup Newton. Justice Vertefeuille addressed the current class of first-year law students.

The justices say that seeing so many of their former classmates and fellow alumni in court and throughout their travels makes the UConn School of Law experience unique.

"The school attracts national talent," Justice Katz says.

"We see people we went to UConn with all the time at functions and in our court. It's like being in a club that is sustaining. You don't get that when you go to law school in another state and then come back to practice."

"I'm tremendously proud of the law school," says Justice Vertefeuille. "As good a school as it was when we went there, it has a greater national reputation today. We are invited to do Moot Court at many law schools. We're just thrilled to see the caliber of our law students. They are so good."