The one person Luttig couldn’t get a job at the Supreme Court was J. Michael Luttig. He was long considered by many to be almost a shoo-in but was passed over in 2005 in favor of Roberts and Samuel Alito. He left the federal bench the following year for a lucrative but low-profile job as general counsel at Boeing, noting the looming cost of his children’s college tuition.

And so it was that one of the most celebrated legal minds of his generation failed to ascend to the highest court in the land — freeing him to play another, perhaps more consequential role.