Clarence Thomas is slowly but surely becoming one of the most influential of the nine jurists whose opinions today have so much to do with the conduct of our government, as well as our daily lives. No Supreme Court justice in history has had to endure the constant vilification which Thomas has. He has chosen to ignore what was said about him in favor of long hours and hard work on the cases assigned to him. He told me recently that his greatest satisfaction in being on the Court is the ability to eventually bring his colleagues around to a sound point of view by doing solid work. Nothing has shaken him from that goal.
Some justices have their clerks do all of the writing.
They merely outline their views, and the clerks do the rest of the work. In fact, sometimes justices haven't even known which way they wanted to go on a case, so they had their clerks give them opposite opinions on an issue and then they choose one of the opinions as their own. Thomas doesn't let others do the most important work of the Court. He labors away at writing the material himself. What has become clear is that, as a result of his labors, the other justices now regard him as a keen intellect whose opinions are always backed by excellent research.