It has been over forty years since a Solicitor General has moved to the High Court. Now that Elena Kagan has followed in Thurgood Marshall’s footsteps—when she moved from standing in front of the bench to sitting behind it—she has to navigate a strict judicial disqualification statute that did not exist in 1967, when Thurgood Marshall (the grandson of a slave) left his position as Solicitor General to become Supreme Court Justice.