Similar Appeal; Different Styles

Roberts grew up in Long Beach, Ind., and attended a private school in nearby LaPorte before going on to Harvard and Harvard Law School. He clerked for Judge Henry J. Friendly of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit, in New York, and later for Rehnquist, who was then an associate justice.

After that, he worked as a special assistant to U.S. Attorney General William French Smith and as an aide to White House counsel Fred Fielding -- who also mentored Luttig -- during the Reagan administration.

Roberts joined the Washington law firm of Hogan & Hartson in 1986, then went into President George H.W. Bush's administration, arguing cases before the Supreme Court as Solicitor General Kenneth W. Starr's principal deputy. He was nominated to the D.C. Circuit in 1992, but the appointment died when Bill Clinton succeeded Bush as president. Roberts returned to Hogan & Hartson, where he headed the firm's appellate practice and frequently argued before the Supreme Court. President Bush nominated him to the D.C. Circuit two years ago.

Two opinions by Luttig and Roberts from 2003 illustrate their contrasting styles.

When Luttig was on the losing side of a preliminary 7 to 5 decision that effectively gave Zacarias Moussaoui -- the only person charged in the United States in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks -- the right to question Ramzi Binalshibh, a detainee suspected of being a key al Qaeda operative, Luttig attacked the majority.

"I believe my colleagues have gravely underestimated the effect that their respective orders and decisions have already had, and now will continue to have, on the Nation's intelligence gathering . . . as we wage war against terrorism," he wrote. The 4th Circuit eventually backed the government.

When the D.C. Circuit refused to reconsider a three-judge panel's ruling protecting a rare California toad under the Endangered Species Act, Roberts dissented -- gently.

"To be fair," he wrote, the panel "faithfully applied" the circuit court's precedent, but a rehearing would "afford the opportunity to consider alternative grounds for sustaining application of the Act that may be more consistent with Supreme Court precedent."

Of the two, Roberts spent more time practicing law in Washington, where he has networked with many Democrats. When Roberts was nominated for the D.C. Circuit in 2003, Clinton's former solicitor general, Seth P. Waxman, called Roberts an "exceptionally well-qualified appellate advocate."

"He is a Washington lawyer, a conservative, not an ideologue," said Stuart H. Newberger, a lawyer and self-described liberal Democrat who has argued cases against Roberts.

He put in his time advising the Bush legal team in Florida during the battle over the 2000 presidential election and has often argued conservative positions before the court -- but they can be attributed to clients, not necessarily to him.

That includes a brief he wrote for President George H.W. Bush's administration in a 1991 abortion case, in which he observed that "we continue to believe that Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled."