Marcia Coyle has an interest article at law.com about the surprising dominance of the most Elite advocates at the Supreme Court during OT08. In particular, she mentions that ‘elite’ advocates argued in 35 out of 78 cases argued during the most recent number. Also, Ted Olson’s seven arguments in one term might be the highest [...]

This weekend, I went through all the oral argument transcripts from OT00 through OTO8 and I counted how many times each of the major advocates has argued before the Supreme Court. I know that I’ve got all of the big advocates (10+ arguments), but I might be missing a few of the advocates with less. [...]

Solicitor General Kagan has filed a motion for divided argument in Citizens United v. FEC, according to SCOTUSblog. If the motion is granted, the division would create for a very interesting dynamic for the Court’s special September 9 sitting. 30 minutes – Ted Olson 20 minutes – Elena Kagan 10 minutes – Seth Waxman Frequent [...]

The Legal Times hosted an interesting term recap that featured insight from several attorneys who argued cases during the recent term. The panel of David Frederick, Greg Coleman, Pamela Harris, and Neal Katyal was moderated by Tony Mauro. You can find a link to the video here. The panelists: Pamela Harris – argued Pleasant Grove [...]

While I will readily accept that my end-of-term comments are even less relevant than usual because they are so belligerently late, I still think I have a few interesting things to point out about the nearly-finished term. First, and least controversially, Justice Kennedy still controls an important position in the middle of the Court. Justice [...]

My goal was to publish the final term statistics today, but because the Court will hear rearguments in Citzens United and likely issue an opinion before the beginning of OT09, I’ll have to update these statistics again in September. I’ve updated the 2008 Term Case Index, which you can always find at the top of [...]

I’ve compiled a really interesting list featuring the win-loss record of every advocate from the SG’s office and all of the top private advocates. The list is necessarily incomplete but I wanted to give everyone sample of it before I publish the final version tomorrow afternoon when the remaining cases come out. You can also [...]

The Washington Post has a fascinating article about Tom Goldstein that you can find here. The best quote is definitely the following: White House officials had asked to consult Goldstein on the court vacancy, but by the time he returned from a weekend in Paris, Obama had made his choice. Determined not to miss the [...]

Andrew Frey’s biography on the Mayer Brown website says “He has argued 64 cases in the US Supreme Court, more than any other lawyer currently in private practice.” Well, Carter Phillips of Sidley Austin has been creeping up for some time now and finally beat him when he argued for the respondents in Gross v. [...]

I was in Washington earlier today to watch oral arguments in Ricci v. DeStefano, the case in which I filed my own amicus brief. I arrived in Washington around 11:30pm and, after a friend told me that no one was in line at the Court, we got chinese food in Chinatown. We got food and [...]