When TIME prepares a cover story, its correspondents often interview scores, sometimes hundreds, of people. The goal is to provide a fresh portrait of the subject that is accurate, revealing and comprehensive. For this week's cover story, Correspondent Anne Constable faced one unusual difficulty: Supreme Court Justices do not talk to the press. So she launched her research by speaking at length to nearly two dozen former Supreme Court clerks, all of whom had finished their one-year stints only last summer. Explains Constable: "The newly graduated clerks are perhaps the most knowledgeable source of current information about the Justices, their relationships and the operation of the court."

Undeterred by the Nine's closed-mouth policy, Constable wrote to them asking for interviews. As usual, they proved arctically remote: every Justice who responded rejected her request. "My spirits were a bit deflated," recalls Constable, "but my autograph collection was enhanced."

In her ten years as a TIME correspondent, Constable has covered some of the most important law cases, including a 1975 trial of Attica prison rebels and the 1982 conviction of Wayne Williams for the murder of two young blacks in the infamous "Atlanta killings."

Working from TIME'S New York bureau, Correspondent Ken Banta questioned attorneys who have argued before the Supreme Court, as well as academics who sift the court's opinions for portents of its direction. Observes Banta: "Legal "scholars tend to frame the court's decisions in terms of constitutional history and competing principles. Practicing lawyers are more pragmatic. They look at the Burger Court and ask: 'Which kind of case could I win before it? Which Justices would I try to sway?' "

Associate Editor Evan Thomas, who wrote this week's story, agrees that divining the court's direction "is a bit like Kremlinology." A graduate of the University of Virginia Law School, Thomas is somewhat of an expert himself, having spent two years reporting on the court for TIME and two years writing the magazine's Law section. "This story is partly about what effect the election might have on the court's future direction," says Thomas, "but in writing it, I was reminded of how difficult it is for anyone, even the President, to influence the court."

Noting that the Justices have always objected to being called secretive, Thomas remembers, "One of them, Byron White, once told me, 'We're the only branch of Government that explains itself in writing every time it makes a decision.' "