It is difficult to reduce the qualities of greatness to any simple social equation or historical formula. However, there are some coefficients that offer a reliable guide – talent, opportunity, force of personality, vision, and timing. Although many possess some of these qualities, it is only a small few who are fortunate to have them all and who are also able to combine them in an authentic and winning manner. In the more confined world of judges, these same attributes can mark certain individuals as members of a distinct elite. Although a number of judges are considered great in their time, it is only a handful whose reputation can persist and perhaps grow as the decades pass by. History has a way of confounding as much as confirming both the identity of great judges and the standards for identifying them.

One of those judges who can lay a relatively uncontroversial claim to greatness is the American John Marshall from the early nineteenth century. His is a rags-to-riches or, more accurately, cabin-to-chiefship story with lots of remarkable accommodations in between. He played a central and multifaceted role in the founding of the United States as the constitutional democracy it is today. His influence as first a politician and then more prominently a judge is second to none; it has shaped the role and performance of judges for more than two hundred years. Although there is little debate about him being included in the undisputed cast of great judges that have dominated the common law tradition, there is still much to discuss about exactly what qualities he possessed that have recommended him to so many as the quintessential great judge. If all the reports are true, John Marshall was one of those who demonstrated that nice guys really can finish first.