One of the things we love to do on The Agenda is to secure guests that normally don't do television interviews. And we've had a bit of luck over the few years we've been on the air in doing so.

It's not just the thrill of the "get", which animates so much of American television. It's actually rooted in the quaint notion that there are institutions in our society which are extremely important to the smooth functioning of our democracy, but about which people know precious little.

I'd put the Supreme Court of Canada in that category.

Even though most of their hearings are televised, their deliberations certainly are not, and my suspicion is, more than 90% of Canadians couldn't name one Supreme Court justice nor give a coherent definition of what the court's role in our democracy is.

So when I met Beverley McLachlin, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, at a conference in Ottawa last April, I minced no words when I shook her hand for the first time.

"My goal is to get you to appear on this program that I do," I said, almost at the same second as I asked how she was doing.

Her response was about as non-committal as they come. She smiled, nodded, said it was nice to meet me, and if I remember correctly, gave me a kind of "We'll see."  And that was it.

I took another 30 seconds to impress upon the chief justice that she presided over an instutition that Canadians knew precious little about, and through a serious, intelligent television interview, she could go some distance to shining a little more light on what she and her fellow judges do.

Again, no commitment, but no outright rejection either. I took that as a positive sign.

Then I spent the next six months going back and forth on email with her staff, trying to figure out whether the chief, indeed, was open to doing the interview, and if so, what it would be about.

There were remarkably few ground rules on both sides. Her staff stated the obvious: no questions about any active cases, which I completely understood.  For my part, I was happy to share the nature of my inquiry, which is how the court operates and how the chief does her job.  I also wanted her here in our studio as opposed to over a satellite line. I wanted to be able to establish that extra degree of comfort one gets when the guest is sitting two feet away from you, as opposed to 450 miles away.

Much to my surprise and delight, the emails went back and forth, the negotiations were quite pleasant, and it all came together.

So tonight, in a rare television appearence, the Chief Justice will spend 25 minutes telling us what she and her colleagues do, and why it's important to our society.

Not all interviews take seven months to line up. Some take five minutes. I hope you think this one will be worth the wait.

See you at 8 and/or 11 p.m.