On a brilliant spring day when the U.S. Supreme Court was poised to hear one of the most closely watched arguments in a generation, Washington’s cherry blossoms bloomed, protesters  gathered in the nation’s capitol and Professor Robert Field sat at the center of the spectacle, moonlighting as a journalist.

The eyes of the nation were on the Supreme Court that day in March, when the justices had scheduled arguments concerning a controversial provision of the health care reforms President Obama signed into law in 2010.

Field had been issued a press pass and asked to write about the historic occasion for the Philadelphia Inquirer, for which he began blogging about health care policy and the law in 2010.

A respected scholar, Field felt somewhat overwhelmed entering the courtroom with veteran Supreme Court reporters for major media outlets like the New York Times, National Public Radio, and CNN.  As it turned out, he found himself seated next to an old high school classmate who covers the Court for Hearst Newspapers.

“It took a moment to absorb it all,” the mild-mannered professor said.  “Surrounded by the press corps, I was in new terrain.”

With the fate of Obama’s signature policy initiative on the line, electricity in the hushed courtroom was palpable, Field said. 

Veterans of the court’s press corps sat in a front row facing into the courtroom, but Field and many of the others sat directly behind them, with a view obstructed by columns. Field could see only Justices Samuel Alito and Elena Kagan. 

As the arguments unfolded, most striking to Field was Solicitor General Donald Verrilli’s evident nervousness.

“He was terribly unprepared on some of the key questions about the Commerce Clause,” Field said. “There were cases he didn’t bring up that would have helped, and he had no succinct summary of the nature of the Commerce Clause and its contours.”

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg tried to help Verrilli by pointing to parallels with the popular Social Security program, Field said, bewildered that the solicitor general needed such prompting.

Hanging on every word, the reporters scribbled especially fast whenever Justice Anthony Kennedy – a potential swing vote on the court – spoke, Field said.  

Alito and Justice Antonin Scalia asked relatively few questions of Paul Clement, the attorney who argued that the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that individuals obtain health insurance is unconstitutional.

Chief Justice John Roberts “did ask some tough questions of Clement,” Field observed, “but he seemed more impassioned when questioning Verrilli.”

By 4:30 p.m., Field had navigated the protests outside the courthouse and filed his story from a desk at the Hearst Newspapers bureau, which was provided courtesy of his high school friend.

Field wrote, in his article appearing the next day’s Inquirer, that the individual mandate’s fortunes do not look rosy, based on the justices’ skepticism during arguments. 

But Field envisioned a scenario in which the court upholds other components of the law, like an expansion of Medicaid to cover more people.