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He asked Souter the same question
Mathew Rosengart was a Boston College law student on the verge of accepting a federal clerkship, the prestigious choice. Instead he interviewed with David Souter, then a relatively obscure judge on the New Hampshire Supreme Court, shortly before Souter was elevated to the First Circuit and then the U.S. Supreme Court. Souter always took one clerk from Boston College, where his mentor, former Senator Warren Rudman, had gone to law school, and one from Harvard.
Souter put the question point blank, in a deep Yankee accent. A bead of sweat ran down the middle of the student's forehead as he grappled with it, and he answered with a case he had just read in his criminal procedure class. Then he asked Souter which decision of the past 50 years he would reverse. Souter answered it.
The impudence, or confidence, Souter saw in that move is probably what won the student the job. He chose Souter over the federal clerkship, and much of the success that followed he traces back to that year.
How did Souter reach the Supreme Court so fast?
David Souter joined the New Hampshire Supreme Court in 1983 and was named to the First Circuit Court of Appeals by President George H. W. Bush in early 1990. After Justice William Brennan retired that summer, Bush nominated Souter to the Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed him 90 to 9 in October 1990. He served on the Court until he retired in 2009.
How did Warren Rudman shape Souter's career?
Rudman and Souter worked together in the New Hampshire attorney general's office in the 1970s, where Rudman was attorney general and Souter his deputy. Souter later succeeded him in that job. As a United States senator, Rudman backed Souter's nomination to the Supreme Court alongside White House chief of staff John Sununu. Rudman served in the Senate from 1981 to 1993.
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