July 3, 2010: With the new John Paul Stevens biography, timing is everything

The confirmation hearings paving Solicitor General Elena Kagan’s way to the Supreme Court began this week on Capitol Hill, just as nonagenarian John Paul Stevens, the man she’d been nominated to replace on the high court, quietly retired into history. As journalists and legal scholars alike ponder the shape of Stevens’ legacy, authors Bill Barnhart and Gene Schlickman reflect on the justice’s early years in John Paul Stevens: An Independent Life, their self-proclaimed first biography of the Supreme Court’s number one dissenter.

With the new John Paul Stevens biography, timing is everything