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Douglas' avowed unwillingness to compromise meant he rarely even tried to persuade fellow Justices. "Bill Douglas is positively embarrassed if anyone on the court agrees with him," said one colleague. Increasingly, his impact on the court was diminished by his failure to include the legal reasoning behind his opinions. Concedes Law Professor Charles Ares of the University of Arizona, once Douglas' clerk: "His impatience with dressing up his opinions with careful arguments will probably cause Douglas not to be ranked right at the top by the experts." For almost 37 years —first mostly in dissent, then as part of the Warren Court majority, finally in dissent once more—he etched a record that above all marked him as the most doctrinaire and committed civil libertarian ever to sit on the court.