University of Houston Law Center professor Michael Olivas and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she strives to stay away from politics, but the justice worked the room like a politician while speaking on Friday to law students, lawyers and judges at the University of Houston Law Center.

During an hour-long talk and question-and-answer session, Sotomayor offered her thoughts on what is needed in a legal education, the quality of lawyers who argue before the Supreme Court and the intersection of politics and the law.

For the first half hour, Sotomayor sat on a stage and answered questions posed by UH Law Center professor Michael Olivas, who is a friend of Sotomayor. During the next 30 minutes, she walked through Max Krost Hall and answered questions from law students while simultaneously shaking hands with audience members and posing for photos with the law students who had questions for her.

She said walking around helps her think.

Sotomayor, who graduated from Yale Law School in 1979 and joined the court in 2009, has her own specific ideas for improving legal education. She said law schools should start ethics training for law students earlier and should require students to do pro bono work while in law school—something some law schools are doing well by establishing legal clinics.

She also said law schools should emphasize core courses, such as tax, corporate and trusts and estates, to develop well-rounded lawyers. These classes help make sure lawyers “can figure out any situation,” she said.

One law student asked the justice what she does when her personal experiences intersect with an issue in a case before the court. Sotomayor said that justices have to take stock of their own prejudices so they can be fair to both sides. But she noted that “the fact that I'm sympathetic does not mean the law is.”

Sotomayor also shared her observation that sometimes criminal defense attorneys making oral arguments before the court for the first time don't do as well as veteran appellate lawyers who know how to present a U.S. Supreme Court argument. And she was unusually candid about how she responds to them. When a “new advocate” comes before the court, Sotomayor said she may pass a note to a colleague, saying, “I want to kill them,” because that lawyer may miss a line of argument or take an unnecessary position.

When a student asked her how the court maintains judicial integrity in times of political pressure, Sotomayor responded, “It's not easy”—a comment that drew a big laugh.

Sotomayor said the court seems to be taking more cases on issues that should be before the legislative branch, but added that the justices nevertheless strive to follow the Constitution.

“Each of us works very hard to ensure we don't get caught up in the fray,” she said.

She said the justices make their opinions on hot-button issues known in their dissents and concurrences, but few people actually read those opinions.

At a time when women's rights and the #MeToo movement have dominated national discourse, Sotomayor offered some insight to women law students. Conditions are “getting better,” she said, and the legal profession is improving pay and responsibilities for women lawyers.

But some changes that are less clear-cut yet nevertheless needed will take longer, she said. For example, she expressed hope that someday a U.S. marshal she sees at a courthouse may “think twice before calling me 'Honey.'”

The University of Houston Law Center extended an invitation to Sotomayor three years ago. Leonard Baynes, dean of the law school, said students benefit in a big way from meeting a Supreme Court Justice in person. It makes the court come alive for the students, as well as the cases they read in class.

“For law students, seeing a Supreme Court Justice is like seeing a rock star,” Baynes said.

Copies of Sotomayor's memoir, “My Beloved World,” were offered for sale outside Krost Hall. In 2013, Sotomayor visited Houston and gave a talk that was open to the public and hosted by a Houston speakers' organization.