Clare Cushman, The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789-1995 (2^nd ed. Congressional Quarterly 1995) (1993).

Leon Friedman and Fred L. Israel, The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions (Chelsea House Publishers 1997).

Melvin I. Urofsky, The Supreme Court Justices: A Biographical Dictionary (Garland Publishing 1994).

Clare Cushman’s book, The Supreme Court Justices: Illustrated Biographies, 1789-1995, contains about five pages per Justice and includes multiple pictures, portraits, and other illustrations. The information appears in an easy-to-read format and summarizes the life of each Justice from the first Supreme Court Justice to the most recent addition to the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen Breyer. For quick reference, the book includes a table at the back which contains statistical information about each Justice, such as: (a) the state appointed from, (b) the appointing President, (c) whose seat the Justice took, (d) the date the Justice was nominated, (e) the date the Senate confirmed the nomination, (f) the date the judicial oath was taken, (g) the date the Justice’s service terminated, and (h) the span of years that the Justice served on the Supreme Court. [2]

In their books, The Justices of the United States Supreme Court: Their Lives and Major Opinions, Friedman and Israel spend between fifteen and thirty pages on each Justice. This five-volume set includes a picture at the beginning of each Justice’s section, but the remainder of each entry has no illustrations. Like Cushman’s book, Friedman and Israel trace the life of each Supreme Court Justice in order of appointment and conclude with Justice Breyer. Unlike Cushman, Friedman and Israel offer excerpts from the Justices’ opinions in their entries, as well as biographical information.

The Urofsky book follows a different organizational approach from the other two books by arranging the Justices in alphabetical order. Because the book was published in 1994, it is current only through Justice Ginsburg’s appointment. Urofsky devotes two to ten pages per Justice and includes a portrait with each entry. Each section begins with the date of the Justice’s birth, nomination to the Supreme Court, oath of office, resignation, and death. The Urofsky book also provides information about the nominating President in the brief capsule summary. [3]

All three resources are very useful for locating general biographical information on the Justices in a convenient format. For ready reference questions on the Justices, these books offer brief summaries of the Justices’ lives and refer readers to additional works written about the Justices in their bibliographical sections.