"Don't despair."

That was the departing message U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan left with a near capacity crowd at Zellerbach Hall on the University of California, Berkeley campus Monday afternoon. Kagan, who sat for an hourlong question-and-answer session with UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, delivered that message—her final two words after more than an hour on stage—in response to a question from a third-year law student who expressed waning faith in the court's integrity under partisan strains.

Kagan told the student the doubts he was expressing were "overblown," but later added they were concerns the court must take seriously. Kagan said that "a small minority" of the cases the court takes each year end up splitting 5-4 and that last term there were instances where those closely divided votes didn't shake out along expected fault lines.

"I think you would have a hard time looking at last term and telling that story," said Kagan of the perceived partisan divide on the court.

But Kagan also acknowledged that the court cannot ignore the polarized atmosphere in which it decides cases.

"Does the fact that we live in a polarized world increase the responsibility of the court to think about these questions to behave in a nonpolarized fashion? I think it does," she said. "I think we have to understand the world we're living in and try, to the extent we can, to find common ground, to try to the extent that we can to reach consensus, to try to the extent we can to see how the world looks from another point of view."

Kagan added that "the responsible thing for a court to do in these times is to remember that it has to look like a court in order to maintain people's sense of legitimacy in the institution which is a critical, critical thing."

UC Berkeley School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and Associate Justice Elena Kagan, U.S. Supreme Court.(Photo: Jason Doiy/ALM)

Kagan delivered her "don't despair" admonition at the end of a full day of events at the law school, including breakfast with students, teaching a course and having lunch with faculty. Kagan's conversation with Chemerinsky highlighted her impressive resume, which includes a clerkship with Justice Thurgood Marshall at the Supreme Court, a stint as dean of Harvard Law School and service as U.S. solicitor general. "What you're seeing are the jobs I got. What you're not seeing is all the jobs I didn't get," said Kagan, encouraging students to take their time in law school to experiment and explore various opportunities and interests.

"You never know how these things work out," Kagan said. "I think this is true for a lot of people when you talk about their careers is what you think of as a low point ends up being kind of a pivot to something that turns into a very high point."