[9] At one point during a discussion of the case with reporters at ACLU headquarters by Soifer and Morton Halperin, "a Department of Energy official entered the small conference room... and asked for whatever was being handed out".
[11] Noting that people tend to consider paternalism to be offensive, Soifer found that it was an inevitable function of society, and its application could be identified in Supreme Court decisions.
[11] In 1982, Soifer concurred with Lawrence G. Sager that the Supreme Court was appearing to become less functional, stating that it was "losing its institutional clout and credibility" through its unusual number of fractured decisions and narrowly decided cases.
[17][18] The William S. Richardson School of Law, in extending the deanship to Soifer, doubled the salary previously paid to the holder of that position.
[2] Soifer had previously spent a year in Hawaii, from 1999 to 2000, as a visiting professor during the pendency of the case of Rice v. Cayetano, which was being appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States.