In a 2012 visit to the University of Chicago, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who had served as a law professor at the campus from 1977 to 1982, said he tried to frame his decisions by interpreting them with the original intent of the Founding Fathers.

Scalia, 79, who was known as a staunch conservative, died while on a hunting trip in Texas, according to a statement issued Saturday by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

According to University of Chicago Law professor Aziz Huq, Scalia's focus on "orginalism" will be known as his legacy. He said rather than focusing on individual cases, he changed the way the court approached the law by trying to return to its past.

"His contributions, with the way the justice system thought about the law, will be enduring," Huq said. "He felt that you have to go back to the original meaning of the Constitution, what the folks in the 1700s were doing and trying to get the meaning to those words they used."

He said that Scalia had spoken to his constitutional law class and he got to know him when Huq clerked for Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 2003 and 2004. He recalls that when Ginsburg was having a birthday, he spotted Scalia hand-delivering flowers to the liberal justice.

"I see this massive, massive bouquet of flowers that he personally delivered," Huq recalled. "He personally was very charming."

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