We have differing views on law, politics and religion. But I have yet to meet a Scalia clerk who was not grateful to the man who taught us, shaped us, and launched us into our lives in the law. Justice Scalia's passing leaves a giant void in the court and in the intellectual discourse over the law.

The citizens of Michigan elect the justices to resolve the complex disputes that reach the Supreme Court, and we must not shrink from that duty.

I am often asked what it was like to be a woman clerking for Justice Scalia. 'Much like being a man clerking for him' is my easy answer. Justice Scalia believed in one simple principle: That law came to the court as an 'is,' not an 'ought.'

When I first met Antonin Scalia, I was a small child with one brown ponytail atop my head. Which is odd, because I was a full-grown woman, and my hair was short and blond. Still, sitting on the black leather sofa in his chambers, I remember shrinking.