On Saturday, reports surfaced that Senior Associate U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was been found dead at a West Texas luxury resort. According to The Guardian, Scalia — who was 79 — is believed to have died of natural causes. It's no secret that Scalia did a lot during his life, particularly his career — though his conservative views weren't particularly agreed upon by many, it's impossible to deny that. However, as we look back on his life and his career in the Supreme Court, it's important to consider what Scalia did before SCOTUS as well: where he came from, and his life before he became a Supreme Court Justice.
Scalia, born in 1936, was originally from Trenton, New Jersey. As Biography points out, his family moved to New York City when he was a child, and he attended school there before moving on to Georgetown University, then, eventually, Harvard Law School. It was from there that Scalia began working as a lawyer, which led to the rest of his career: According to the New York Daily News, beginning in 1961, he first worked at a private practice in Cleveland, Ohio — specifically, the law offices of Jones, Day, Cockley, and Reavis. A few years later, though, in 1967, he left to become a law professor at the University of Virginia Law School.
This position lasted for a good while: According to USA Today , however, in 1971 the president at the time, President Richard Nixon, recruited Scalia to general counsel for the Office of Telecommunications Policy. This position only lasted about a year — between 1972 and 1974, he worked as Chairman of the Administrative Conference of the United States, then, in 1974 (aka, right after the Watergate scandal) he left this position to take on a job as Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel.
Scalia's love of teaching never left him, though — and it wasn't long before he was back in front of a chalkboard as a law professor at the University of Chicago Law School in 1977.
It was around this time that Scalia's work began directly leading him to the role that he would become most known for — as a Supreme Court Justice. In 1982. President Ronald Reagan appointed Scalia to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where he worked for four years — before, in 1986, President Reagan ultimately nominated him to the Supreme Court.
Scalia had a long, successful career in politics, and it's clear he managed a lot during his life.
