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When attorney Robert Ashley was a junior in high school, he once had a Coke with former U.S. Supreme Court Justice William Rehnquist in a courtyard of the “Marble Palace.”
The self-described history nerd was excited to be in Washington, D.C. to visit the Smithsonian and the capital’s monuments. His mother, Marilyn, had just completed a fellowship through William and Mary College and the family had the opportunity to take a special tour of the U.S. Supreme Court building, which led to the teen-ager meeting the Court’s 16th chief justice.
For many lawyers, that might be the origin story of why they went on to law school and became an attorney, but not for Ashley, who at the time was far more interested in sports, particularly baseball, than a legal career.
“It was awesome,” he says. “But at that time, I had no interest in going into law.”
It would be several years yet before Ashley considered law school and it would prove to be at the urging of judges closer to home in Marin County, Calif., where his mother was the Court Operations Manager in charge of jury services and the civil division. She frequently attended conferences across the country to help courts implement jury systems and technology upgrades.
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