- It was depressing to listen to Sonia Sotomayor’s Senate confirmation hearings. She went to great lengths to convince her interrogators that she would do nothing creative while on the Supreme Court. That she would adhere strictly to the body of precedent of American law. Everyone knows that a Supreme Court decision creates the reality of a law as much as an act of congress yet she had to deny that she would ever think that she was doing anything other than carrying out the spirit of the laws passed by her esteemed inquisitors. Is the law immune and isolated from creativity at its highest levels? Our legal system is crying for substantive new ideas. Sadly, a supreme court judge, the most powerful player in our legal system, is like a musician in a symphony orchestra. They read the notes and play the tune. They are valued for their subtle, knowing interpretation of music created by others. The musician doesn’t compose the notes - the judges claim that they are not making the law. Musical composition is risky and messy and full of passion, instinct, ambiguity, uncertainty as is law-making. Aaron Burr once said: “The law is anything that is forcefully asserted and reasonably maintained.” Supreme Court justice Sotomayor claimed over and over again during her confirmation hearings that she does not make the law - she doth protest too much.