What's Samuel Alito Really Like?

Jim Axelrod Speaks To Longtime Coworkers, Associates To Find Out

(CBS)  A sudden hot-seller at the T.M. Ward coffee shop in Newark, N.J., is "The Judge Alito" blend: strong, dark-roasted and mid-priced, at $7.95 a pound.

"It's pretty much middle of the road," the shop's Jeff Sommer tells CBS News Correspondent Jim Axelrod.

"Middle of the road?" Axelrod asked. "That's probably the last time we're gonna hear that about Judge Alito for awhile."

Ask around where Alito's worked for years, Axelrod reports, and you keep hearing the same thing.

"Respectful, polite, caring, thoughtful, measured. That is Judge Alito," observes Adam Ciongoli, a former law clerk to the man President Bush wants to be the next Supreme Court justice.

Born in Trenton, N.J., the son of an Italian immigrant, Alito is a product of Princeton, and Yale Law School. The former U.S. attorney for New Jersey was nominated for the federal bench at age 39.

So, asks Axelrod, "How does, 'What kind of guy is he?' have anything to do with, 'What kind of Supreme Court justice would this guy make?' Seems kind of squishy, doesn't it? Well, the people who've worked with Sam Alito for years in the federal buildings of downtown Newark say it tells you a lot.

"Somebody who displays the kind of respect for the views of others that he does in other settings, you can expect that he'll continue to do that on the bench," says Edward Hartnett of the Seton Hall University School of Law.

Hartnett first met Alito in the early 1990s, when Hartnett was an intimidated young lawyer, still wet behind the ears.

He says Alito was "just very decent, humble and respectful in dealing with this kid lawyer."

And Hartnett said he thinks it's fair to say that's not always the case with federal judges.

Federal appellate judge Leonard Garth may know this legal mind best.

He calls Alito "an individual who, on a scale of 1 to 10, rates somewhere around 103."

Alito clerked for Garth before joining him years later on the same appellate bench.

"I don't think that Sam is influenced by his colleagues to the point where he would depart from his own convictions, and from his own learning, and from his own principles," Garth says.

He recalled a background check on Alito, and how deep he had to go to find a problem: "The FBI gentleman says, 'Don't you have any reservations about him?' And I said, 'Yes: He has a lousy backhand.' "

The next few months will provide more pointed critiques, for sure.

But, concludes Axelrod, those who know Alito best say as far as the kind of person he is, the president couldn't have done better.