The date today is September 26, 2001, and this is a resumption of the oral history
interview of Judge Laurence Silberman. The interviewer is again Raymond Rasenberger.
MR. RASENBERGER: Judge Silberman, when we last spoke, we had gone
through your youth, your well-spent youth I should say, and your first job in private practice in
Hawaii and you had just talked about coming back to Washington, to Washington for the first
time as an appellate lawyer with the National Labor Relations Board. Do I have that much right?
JUDGE SILBERMAN: That is correct.
MR. RASENBERGER: I wanted to ask you just about that experience, that lasted
only a year or so, as I recall, the NLRB job. I assume you were doing some appellate arguing in
the D.C. Circuit, or is that not so?
JUDGE SILBERMAN: Actually, I did have one case in the D.C. Circuit. I
remember it quite vividly because the Board decision that I was defending was favorable to a
union. The panel included Judge Bazelon and I barely got a chance to argue. He virtually took
over the argument and pounded the poor petitioner employer’s lawyer.
MR. RASENBERGER: How did the case come out? Do you recall?
JUDGE SILBERMAN: Oh, I won, of course, but I hesitate to say I won.
MR. RASENBERGER: Right.
JUDGE SILBERMAN: Bazelon won.
MR. RASENBERGER: Although it was called the Bazelon court in those days
for good reason.
JUDGE SILBERMAN: Right.
MR. RASENBERGER: Did you have much contact with any of the other D.C.
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