Robert Bork

In between stints in academia and after service in the Justice Department as Solicitor General, Robert Bork spent six years on the D.C. Circuit. Eventually, as is well known, his nomination to the Supreme Court by President Reagan was defeated after a bruising confirmation battle. Less well known are Judge Bork’s years as an appellate judge, which are the subject of his oral history for the Historical Society. Victoria Radd Rollins’s  summary of Judge Bork’s oral history highlights his tenure on the Court of Appeals, focusing on some of the pleasures, but also some of the downsides, of what he called “ an isolated job.”