Faculty in the News: Aaron Nielson

November 13, 2018

BYU Law Professor Aaron Nielson’s paper “Clarence Thomas the Questioner” is featured in Law360‘s article, “High Court Will Benefit From More Thomas Talk, Scholars Say.”  Professor Nielson co-authored the paper with RonNell Andersen Jones at the University of Utah. As stated in the paper: “Drawing on the most comprehensive collection of Thomas’s oral argument questions ever compiled, we urge the Justice to ask more questions for a new reason: he is good at it.”

The Law360 article highlights Professor Nielson and Jones’ characterization of Justice Thomas as a “model questioner:” “’Indeed, the picture of Clarence Thomas, the Questioner, that emerges is one that exemplifies key attributes of judicial questioning,’ the professors said. ‘Thomas is a fact-stickler, boundary-tester, attorney-respecter, statute-parser, insight-offerer, plain-speaker, and team-player. This combination makes Thomas a powerful questioner — when he chooses to ask questions.’”

View Professor Nielson’s SSRN paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2862240
View Law360 article (registration required): https://www.law360.com/appellate/articles/858534