Roberts rules

President Bush has picked for the Supreme Court one of Washington's top legal minds and resumés. But John Roberts' conservative record may tell us less than many think about the type of justice he will be | Lynn Vincent

Until his confirmation to the federal bench in 2003, Washington, D.C., attorney John Roberts Jr. dropped in regularly at 214 Massachusetts Avenue N.E. to hassle other lawyers.

OK, not hassle exactly. Mr. Roberts, then in private practice, volunteered at the Heritage Foundation, teaming with conservative attorneys like Miguel Estrada and Jay Sekulow for "moot courts"—mock arguments in which lawyers gear up for the real thing by practicing before respected peers who play the role of fire-breathing judges.

During the moot courts, says Todd Gaziano, director of Heritage's Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, "we used to tease him." Mr. Roberts had been tapped for the federal bench in 1992—a nod Democrats let die a procedural death—and his 2001 nomination was still on hold, so "we'd say, 'You know, with a nomination that's 11 years old and pending, this might be as close as you're ever going to get to being a federal judge.'"