“Just don’t screw up.”

That was rookie Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s advice to a nervous Marshall Rothstein before the federal judge made Canadian legal history as the first ever to face a public grilling by parliamentary committee as Harper’s first Supreme Court of Canada nominee.

It was 2006.

But with Rothstein, Harper had made a safe pick. An administrative and transportation law expert, Rothstein had been shortlisted prior to the election by an all-party committee after a search conducted under the previous Liberal government. The parliamentary hearing would be smooth sailing.

Rothstein, however, was a nervous wreck: “It was very scary,” he admits now.

In an interview to mark his Aug. 31st retirement, Rothstein says leaving the top court after nine years is also scary.