5 Things About Justice Ginsburg (That You Might Not Know)

By Betty Wang, JD on June 28, 2013 | Last updated on March 21, 2019

Let's not kid ourselves - as law students, lawyers, or prospective lawyers, we can get a tad bit geeky. This means that you definitely have a favorite Supreme Court justice, for one. Mine happens to be Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

If you don't already know about RBG, make sure you look up her extraordinary life. If strong, resilient, certified-badass women are your thing, you might be interested. For those of us who are already familiar with her well-known accolades and general life story, however, here are 5 awesome "other" things about the great RBG that you might actually not know:

1. Her adorable BFF-status relationship with Justice Antonin Scalia. That’s right, Scalia of all folks. These two definitely have their friendship necklaces on underneath their robes. Because, despite their obvious differences at work, these two maturely (and adorably) put that aside on weekends and evenings. Sometimes, even for longer than that. AGS and RBG have opera dates together, and even posed for a shot on a camel on a trip to Egypt.

2. She’s the SCOTUS Justice with the highest net worth. At a whopping $18.1 million, at that. RBG comes in as the wealthiest justice, and she’s a fabulous woman. Total baller status.

3. She used to be a, wait for it … a cheerleader. That’s right. Not only was RBG the 107th justice to the United States Supreme Court, the first Jewish justice since 1969, and the second woman to sit on that court, after Sandra Day O’Connor, but she was a devout spirit leader in high school. RBG participated in the orchestra, playing the cello, was a cheerleader, the editor of her high school newspaper (let’s not forget she also later was on the Harvard and Columbia Law Review), and a baton twirler. Get it, girl.

4. Otherwise known as the Notorious RBG, ya’ll. RBG fans are serious about their devotion to her. In fact, we can pretty much wax poetic all day about this amazing woman. Give us a platform, we’ll use it. RBG has t-shirts, her own comic book, and a whole plethora of themed blogs and memes.

5. This quote, in reference to same-sex marriage: “There’s two kinds of marriage, there’s full marriage and then there’s sort of skim milk marriage.” Spoiler alert, guys, gay marriage is the skim milk marriage and RBG does recognize that it is not the same in this country as straight folks’ marriage. Also, even bigger spoiler alert: DOMA is dying, and California’s Proposition 8 is on its way out. We can thank RBG (and, okay, maybe a few others) for that.

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