In almost 28 years on the U.S. Supreme Court, Justice Stephen G. Breyer has been a moderate liberal on an increasingly conservative court. He has advocated interpreting statutes to achieve their purpose on a court that moved sharply away from that approach in favor of focusing on the plain language of laws. He has stressed looking at pragmatic real-world consequences on a bench that has become ever more ideological in its rulings. A former professor who specialized in administrative law, he has expressed the need for deference to the expertise of agencies at a time when more of the justices are openly hostile to the administrative state.
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has the air of an absent-minded professor, once joking in court that his wife put directions in his pocket to keep him from getting lost. He concocts outlandish hypothetical questions to try to get answers to difficult questions, often to the frustration of lawyers with limited time to make their arguments.
Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer has the air of an absent-minded professor, but it does not mask a relentlessly pragmatic approach to the law that often finds him searching for a middle ground.