Never too early to get up to speed!

Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., told National Journal Thursday afternoon that he was heading out to get some pointers and background information from two veteran Washington lawyers about how to lead the GOP questioning of President Obama's upcoming nominee to the Supreme Court. (Sessions secured his new committee role this week because Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, the former committee ranking member, switched parties to become a Democrat.)

According to the former Alabama federal prosecutor, his guides were former Attorney General William Barr, who served in the Justice Department under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and President George W. Bush's former assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Policy from 2001-2003, Viet Dinh.

Barr, a telecomm attorney now with Kirkland & Ellis, headed Justice during the confirmation hearings for now-retiring Justice David Souter in 1990 and for Justice Clarence Thomas, who barely cleared Senate approval in 1991 by a vote of 52-48. Dinh, known as the primary architect of the USA PATRIOT Act in the wake of 9/11, is a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University, and someone whose name has been a favorite on lists of potential Supreme Court nominees in a Republican administration.

Dinh, who clerked for former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, was part of the team that helped the Bush administration win Senate approval of Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito in 2005 and 2006, respectively.