Antonin Scalia was born in Trenton, New Jersey in 1936. He moved to Queens, New York when he was five. After graduating, first in his class, from St. Francis Xavier, a military prep school in Manhattan, he went on to Georgetown for his B.A., and then Harvard Law School. Scalia spent a number of years in private practice, before going on to teach law at the University of Virginia. Four years later Scalia began working for the government. From 1974 to 1977, he served as Assistant Attorney General. In 1982 he was appointed by President Reagan to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. In 1986, he was nominated to the Supreme Court. Scalia has distinguished himself as the intellectual leader of the Court’s conservatives.