What It Means to Be From Brett Kavanaugh’s Washington

Donald Trump has found his U.S. Supreme Court nominee. Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, has lived a life within Washington’s conservative legal elite, and therefore a life far removed from the pathological political forces that have come to dominate some parts of the country. His life has also been removed from these forces because—like many elite conservative lawyers—he has embraced Washington, and Washington has embraced him. How Kavanaugh navigates the Washington of old and the Washington of Trump will go a long way towards predicting what Kavanaugh will do if he joins the Supreme Court.

The conservative legal elite in Washington are a tightly connected group of professionals. The fact that the most important legal and policy jobs are overwhelmingly concentrated around the District of Columbia means many of these lawyers spend all or large portions of their career living and working closely together in the same metropolitan area. And the fact that a clear minority of the elite legal profession is conservative means that there are fewer conservative lawyers to get to know in town.