The Supreme Court: If At First You Don't Succeed . . .

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Many court watchers question just how conservative the shy, unassuming Ginsburg really is. In his fields of expertise, antitrust law and regulation of the broadcasting and banking industries, Ginsburg is a free-market disciple who believes the government should intervene as little as possible in the business world. Yet there is virtually nothing in his handful of scholarly articles and opinions to indicate where he stands on civil rights, women's issues and privacy rights. Bork's conservative stands on those volatile social matters killed his nomination.

Harvard Law Professor Hal Scott, a friend of Ginsburg's since high school, says the new nominee is a social conservative, though not in the Bork mold. "The difference is Bork is a conceptualist," says Scott. "He has a theory, and the issue is how to fit the case into the theory. Doug comes at things case by case." With Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, Scott says, "everyone will get a fair shake."

Ginsburg's age was an important factor in the President's decision. If approved, Ginsburg would be the youngest Supreme Court Justice since 1939, when William O. Douglas was appointed at 40. "He can be a force on the court for 30 years," says a White House aide. But Ginsburg's inexperience could work against him. When he was seeking confirmation for his federal judgeship last year, the American Bar Association rated him "qualified," its lowest positive ranking.

Nonetheless, Ginsburg possesses a remarkable resume for so young a man. Editor of the law review at the University of Chicago Law School, clerk for liberal Justice Thurgood Marshall, and later professor at Harvard, he left teaching to join the Justice Department as Deputy Assistant Attorney General for regulatory affairs. After a year, he went to work at the regulatory affairs executive office at the OMB, then returned to Justice to head the Antitrust Division. Impressed by his brainy efficiency, Meese recommended him to the President for the federal judiciary in 1986. There is only one quirk in the Ginsburg dossier: during his freshman year at Cornell, he dropped out and became a partner in a computer dating service, Operation Match, in Cambridge, Mass. He sold his share in the business after a couple of years and returned to school several thousand dollars richer.

Ginsburg's personal life may offer a clue to his thinking on social issues. After his first marriage ended in divorce, Ginsburg married Obstetrician- Gynecologist Hallee Morgan in 1981. Their two-year-old daughter is also named Hallee Morgan. When asked why the little girl does not have her father's surname, Christopher DeMuth, president of the American Enterprise Institute and an old friend of Ginsburg's, told the New York Times, "It is a modern marriage taken to the ultimate."Could Douglas Ginsburg, to the horror of some conservatives, turn out to be an ardent feminist?