Are the Supreme Court justices really friends? Some of them genuinely are, some keep it professional, and in recent years even the close friendships have been tested by the kind of disagreements that end up in the U.S. Reports. The Court’s small size, lifetime tenure, and unusual working conditions push the nine justices toward each other whether they like it or not, which produces a mix of real warmth, forced civility, and, lately, visible strain.
The Friendships People Point To
The most famous cross-ideological bond was between Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They sat at opposite ends of the Court for more than two decades and were close for most of that time. They shared a love of opera, spent New Year’s Eve together with their families, and Scalia routinely sent Ginsburg his dissent drafts before publication so she could sharpen her majority opinion against them. Judge Jeffrey Sutton, a former Scalia clerk, once recalled finding two dozen roses in Scalia’s chambers waiting to be delivered to Ginsburg for her birthday. When a clerk asked what good the roses did in close cases, Scalia answered, “Some things are more important than votes.”
Scalia also had an unlikely friendship with Justice Elena Kagan, built around hunting. Shortly after her appointment, Kagan made good on a promise to join Scalia at a shooting range near Washington, which led to quail-hunting trips and, eventually, big-game hunting in Wyoming.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor has spoken openly about her friendship with Justice Clarence Thomas, the colleague she disagrees with most often on paper. “I suspect I have probably disagreed with him more than with any other justice,” she said at a public appearance, adding that they share “a common understanding about people and kindness toward them. That’s why I can be friends with him and still continue our daily battle over our difference of opinions in cases.”
Civility Is Partly Engineered
Some of the friendliness at the Court is genuine, and some of it is built into the routine. Chief Justice Melville Fuller started the “judicial handshake” tradition in the late 1800s: every time the justices gather to take the bench or enter their private conference room, each one shakes hands with all eight colleagues. That’s 36 handshakes per session, and Fuller intended it as a physical reminder that disagreeing about the law doesn’t require personal hostility.1Supreme Court of the United States. The Court and Its Traditions
On argument and conference days, the justices eat lunch together in a private dining room. Books are a common topic; politics, religion, and pending cases are generally off the table. The lunches are a small, deliberate investment in keeping the workplace functional, because people who eat together regularly are less likely to let professional friction turn personal.
The conference room, where preliminary votes are taken, is the most guarded space in the building. No clerks, no staff, no outsiders. If someone knocks, the most junior justice answers. The Chief Justice opens discussion on each case, and the other justices speak in order of seniority.2Supreme Court Historical Society. How The Court Works – The Justices Conference
The Collegiality Is Under Real Strain
The warm anecdotes are true, and they aren’t the whole picture. The breaking point, by most accounts, was Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade. The leak of the draft opinion months before release produced suspicion and finger-pointing among the justices and their staffs. When the decision came down, Justice Kagan publicly questioned the legitimacy of overruling longstanding precedent, Justice Alito answered back in separate public remarks, and Chief Justice Roberts, who voted with the majority on the narrower question but did not join the opinion overturning Roe, was isolated from both camps.
Justice Sotomayor has been candid about the toll. She has described going to her office after certain decisions and closing the door to cry. “Every loss truly traumatizes me in my stomach and in my heart,” she said at the University of California, Berkeley. “But I have to get up the next morning and keep on fighting.”
The numbers point the same direction. In the 19th century, justices agreed with each other roughly 95% of the time. On the modern Court, average agreement hovers around 72%, and the most ideologically distant pairs agree less than 40% of the time. Since Justice Anthony Kennedy retired in 2018, no true swing justice has emerged, so the blocs are more rigid and the losses feel more permanent to whoever is in the minority.
Small incidents show the friction too. In early 2022, reports surfaced that Chief Justice Roberts had asked justices to wear masks on the bench out of concern for Sotomayor, who is diabetic, and that every justice complied except Justice Gorsuch, who sits directly beside her. Sotomayor and Gorsuch quickly issued a joint statement calling the reports “false” and describing each other as “warm colleagues and friends.” That the justices felt compelled to publicly deny a personal rift says something on its own.
Why the Justices End Up Close Whether They Plan To Or Not
Outside of formal business, justices interact in ways that reinforce personal connection. Many appear together at law schools and legal conferences, where audiences see humor and teasing that don’t come through in written opinions. Kagan has described the Court as a place of “great collegiality as colleagues and real friendships,” and credited Chief Justice Roberts with setting a tone of warmth.
Summer teaching pairs justices who might not otherwise spend extended time together. Justice Gorsuch taught a course in Reykjavik, Iceland, where Kagan joined him for part of the program. Justices Kavanaugh and Barrett have co-taught through Notre Dame’s London Law Program. A week of shared meals and classroom work in a foreign city builds a different rapport than debating constitutional interpretation across a conference table.
Security matters here too. The Supreme Court Police provide full-time protection for all nine justices, domestically and internationally, including residential security.3Supreme Court of the United States Police. Who We Are Constant protection limits spontaneous socializing with people outside the Court and, in practice, pushes the justices toward each other. Colleagues who live under the same constraints understand each other’s daily life in a way most outsiders can’t.
When Friendship Becomes an Ethics Question
Friendship among the justices, or between a justice and a lawyer or wealthy acquaintance, is not by itself grounds to step aside from a case. Federal law requires recusal when a justice’s impartiality could reasonably be questioned, when there’s a financial interest in the outcome, or when a close family member is a party or a lawyer in the proceeding.4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 455 – Disqualification of Justice, Judge, or Magistrate Judge Friendship, standing alone, isn’t on that list, and if it were, the Court’s small legal community would make recusal unworkable.
In November 2023, the Court adopted its first formal Code of Conduct, which tells justices not to let “family, social, political, financial, or other relationships” influence their judgment, and sets a recusal standard tied to what an unbiased, reasonable person would think.5Supreme Court of the United States. Code of Conduct for Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States The code lists spouses and relatives within three degrees as automatic disqualifiers when they’re parties, lawyers, or have a stake in the outcome. Friends, no matter how close, aren’t on that list.
The Thomas-Crow reporting is what put this question in front of the public. Investigative journalism revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas had accepted luxury travel from billionaire real estate developer Harlan Crow for more than two decades without disclosing it, including cruises on Crow’s yacht, flights on his private jet, and stays at his private resort. Crow described Thomas as a “dear friend” and said the hospitality was the same he extended to many close friends. The episode is why the ethics question hangs over the friendship question at all: a justice’s close relationship with someone who has no business before the Court is one thing, and a close relationship with someone whose network touches parties, causes, or interests on the docket is something different. Enforcement, though, remains almost entirely internal, with no outside body able to compel a sitting justice to recuse.
So the short answer to the original question is yes and no. Some of the justices are genuine friends, some maintain professional respect without real closeness, and in the Court’s most contentious stretches even the friendships get tested in ways the handshake tradition can’t fully repair.