Shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court had wrapped up the oral argument portion of its term a month ago, Justice Neil Gorsuch was commiserating with his daughter, who was nearing the close of her college semester.

"Her life and mine looked pretty similar at the time," the justice said. "All the classes have been attended and you've heard all the arguments and you've read all the materials you're supposed to read, and now you have to produce the work. It's term paper time."

Justice Gorsuch shared the anecdote with an audience of lawyers, academics, and legal luminaries at the 25th annual Burton Awards on May 20 in Washington, D.C., in a keynote conversation with event host Chris Wallace. The justice, who published a book in 2019 and was slated to speak at the event in 2020 before it was canceled due to COVID, expanded on a wide range of topics including his writing style and originalist approach to case law.

The Burton Awards, funded by the Burton Foundation with Law360 as a lead sponsor, honor distinguished writers and leaders in law. Justice Gorsuch reflected on his own process for writing opinions, a skill Wallace noted made him one of the "livelier, interesting" writers on the court but which the justice deflected as "middle of the pack" in relation to his colleagues.

"This may be one of the best Supreme Courts in terms of writers that the nation has seen in its history," Justice Gorsuch said. "I've got colleagues who are, I think, capable of explaining incredibly complex legal jargon in clear and accessible terms that frankly is a blessing, I think, to the American people."

For his part, the justice explained that when sitting down to draft an opinion, the foremost goal is to persuade himself that he has come to the right conclusion, and his writing style flows from there.

"So what persuades me is clean sentences, relatively short, to the point, only one idea per paragraph," the justice said. "And to proceed methodically and syllogistically, as best you can to your conclusion and candidly confront the strongest arguments on the other side. Not bury them in footnotes, not dispense with them with rhetoric, but try and deal with them as fairly as you can."

In his 2019 book, "A Republic, If You Can Keep It," which the justice said he wrote in part to help people understand a judge's role within the legal system, Justice Gorsuch called his originalist approach to case law "the worst form of constitutional interpretation except for all the others." Any alternative to originalism, he explained to Wallace, would essentially leave judges to decide what was best for society.

"Do you really want me to do what I think is best for you?" Justice Gorsuch asked. "Or do you want me, maybe, to look at the laws adopted by the people's elected representatives or pursuant to the Constitution ratified by the American people as amended, and try my best to interpret those legal documents as they were originally understood?"

Explaining his path to the law, the justice revealed that he originally wanted to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather and become a doctor, before realizing that he had "absolutely no aptitude for math or science." The law, Justice Gorsuch said, "is a place where you can help people with their problems if you can't do math."

Before his appointment to the high court in 2017, Justice Gorsuch served as a federal judge on the Tenth Circuit and taught a legal ethics course at the University of Colorado Law School, a role he lightheartedly recalled being asked to take by Philip Weiser, then dean of the law school.

"I said, 'Phil, I thought that class was supposed to be taught by some old graybeard who's gonna scare the kids straight with war stories,'" the justice recounted. "And he said: 'Yeah, that's exactly right. Look in the mirror.'"

As for civility between the justices, especially in the face of disagreement, strongly held views are what democracy is built on, and nothing reflects that better than the Supreme Court, according to Justice Gorsuch.

"We have to be able to voice our opinions, and of course we also have to listen to others and acknowledge that the person with whom we disagree with strongly loves this country every bit as much as we do," the justice said. "We go to battle, but then there's a firm handshake and maybe a drink afterwards. That's what we do at the Supreme Court. You don't hear about it, but that's the reality of it."

So, Wallace wondered, was the justice feeling any pressure at the moment to finish his "term papers" by the usual end-of-June deadline? No intensity, no pressure at all, Justice Gorsuch answered sarcastically.

"Every year we all look at each other in April, maybe the beginning of May, and say, 'How are we going to get this done?' And we never believe …," the justice trailed off. "It always gets done. It always gets done."