‘This is what I want to do’

In August 2017, Judge Kevin Newsom was appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, and while it may be an enviable position, Newsom said he doesn’t feel any different today than he did when he was in law school at Harvard University, or when he was a student at Samford University.

“I just sort of think of myself as this guy,” Newsom said. “I’m really lucky to have this job. I really do love it, but I don’t think for a minute that I’m special or touched or any better than the next guy.”

After President Donald Trump took office in January 2017, Newsom received a call from the White House asking if he was interested in the position and he went in for an interview, followed by a hearing before the Senate judiciary committee. After being approved by the committee, Newsom was confirmed by the full Senate.

“It was great,” Newsom said. “It was like a civics lesson all rolled into one. I’ve got two school-age kids and got to talk to them about the way the branches interact. It’s like all three branches are involved in this process.”

Newsom grew up in the Edgewood community of Homewood and attended Samford University for his undergraduate work before attending law school at Harvard.

“My experience growing up in Homewood was riding my bike to school and in the summers throwing my tennis racket over my shoulder, getting on my bike and heading off to Homewood Park for the entire day,” Newsom said. “My mom would give me $5 for lunch at Sam’s Super Sandwiches, and it’s sort of inconceivable to us now with cellphones.”

After moving back to Alabama about 10 years ago, Newsom and his family have resided in Vestavia Hills, which he said they love.

Newsom wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, until his junior year at Samford when he took an American constitutional history course and fell in love with the course material. His future became even clearer when he found an event on C-SPAN while watching TV one night.

“There was a law professor on from Yale Law School who was talking about the Bill of Rights and its application to the states, called the incorporation doctrine,” Newsom said. “All I had was the shadows, but I was able to marry up what we had been talking about in this class that I had enjoyed so much, and what this guy was talking about on television, and I thought, … ‘this is what I want to do.’”

While working as a private practice lawyer in Washington D.C., Newsom applied in 1999 for a clerkship with then-Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court David Souter. After he interviewed, he thought he had a good chance of earning the position. But two months later, he received a “polite” handwritten note saying “thanks, but no thanks.”

However, after one of his firm’s cases appeared before the Supreme Court, Newsom was given another chance at the clerkship.

Newsom’s firm was representing ExxonMobil in a breach of contract case against the United States. While working one day, Newsom decided to drive down and watch the court as they announced decisions from the bench on the off chance they decided either of the two cases the firm had before the court.

After the court announced Exxon won the case, Newsom went back to his office and checked his voicemails, the last of which had been left by his assistant, who said someone by the last name Souter from the Supreme Court had called.

Newsom originally believed the message was left by William Suter, the court’s chief clerk, who would call the lead lawyer on cases to alert them to the court’s decision. Newsom, however, wasn’t the lead lawyer, and he assumed his partners couldn’t be reached by Suter. Newsom dialed the number and began the conversation.

“Some voice picks up and says ... ‘Kevin, congratulations on winning the Exxon case this morning,’” Newsom said. “... He said, ‘I tell you what, this Exxon case has been a thorn in my side. … This is a phone call I’ve been needing to make for more than a year now. … If you still want the clerkship, it’s yours.’ I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not talking to William Suter. I’m talking to David Souter.’”

Newsom said Souter had to wait on hiring him after discovering he worked for a firm with cases before the court. The job allowed Newsom to see inside the “important” and “mysterious” world of the Supreme Court. Newsom said he still keeps in touch with the friends he made while clerking for Souter.

“It was beyond awesome,” Newsom said.

Newsom said over the years, he realized not only was he not the smartest student in his class at Harvard Law School, but he probably wasn’t the smartest student in his class at Homewood High School. To compensate, he said he developed an “insane” work ethic, which served him well during his clerkship and his time in several law firms.

“I think it’s important for all kinds of young people to understand you don’t have to be God’s gift to the academic world to really flourish,” Newsom said. “There’s a certain threshold level of intelligence that for any given job you have to have, but then what matters most is how much do you care and how hard are you willing to work.”

Newsom said his role as a judge is to “serve the law” and to use the material available to him faithfully in deciding cases to reach the right decision.

“I think judges owe an obligation to the law,” he said.

Typically, Newsom gets to his office about 7 a.m. and will often stay until 6 p.m. The court hears cases in batches, traveling to court headquarters in Atlanta or to other courts in Miami and Jacksonville and hearing 13 to 15 cases a week while in session. Before that time, Newsom said judges are reading briefs and doing other work on the cases. Newsom said his favorite aspect of his job is writing opinions on cases, defending his decision.

After he was added to a list of potential Supreme Court nominees by the Trump administration in November 2017, Newsom said it was gratifying to even be considered, but he’s happy to have the job he’s held for a little more than a year.

“I love this job, so I work hard at it,” Newsom said.