As all law students know, Alexander Dallas, William Cranch, and Henry Wheaton were early reporters of decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. Due to the sad decline of nominative reporters, law students are less familiar with those men's modern successors. Frank Wagner is the Supreme Court's current reporter of decisions, but he will be retiring at the end of this month.

The reporter's role is to prepare opinions for publication and also to prepare the syllabus of the decision. Tony Mauro of the National Law Journal recently interviewed Frank Wagner. The interview is a fascinating insight into his thoughts on the job's duties; it appears in two parts (part one and part two).