Image by: Carlos Barria/Reuters
This week marks the end of the 2015 Supreme Court Term. There are a ton of data to sort through to better understand the repercussions of the cases and the actors involved. One way to analyze the data is simply by looking at the attorneys that were most successful at oral argument this Term. There were several attorneys with multiple arguments this Term including those from the United States Office of the Solicitor General (OSG). There were only a few attorneys, however, that were successful as oral advocates in multiple cases across the Term [Note: for this calculation I did not include attorneys arguing on behalf of amicus curiae. Also I did not count 4-4 split votes as a win for either side.]. The graph below lists these attorneys.
The most successful attorney when looked at in this manner was former Solicitor General Paul Clement (from Bancroft PLLC) who won in four of the six cases where he argued before the Court (as Michael Lieberman points out, this could arguably be construed as five wins if we count the vacate and remand decision in Zubik as a win). All others with multiple wins have two apiece. This include Allon Kedem and Ilana Eisenstein from the OSG. It also includes attorneys Paul Smith (from Jenner & Block), Peter Stris (from Stris & Maher), and also former Solicitor General Seth Waxman (from WilmerHale).
Along with these attorneys the majority of those that were successful at oral argument won in a single case. Below I include the entire list of attorneys that won in at least one case they argued this Term and their respective number of wins. Stay tuned as I will soon have more detailed data and analysis from the 2015 Term.
| Attorney | Wins |
| PAUL D. CLEMENT | 4 |
| SETH P. WAXMAN | 2 |
| ALLON KEDEM | 2 |
| PETER K. STRIS | 2 |
| PAUL M. SMITH | 2 |
| ILANA H. EISENSTEIN | 2 |
| ANN O’CONNELL | 1 |
| ELAINE J. GOLENDBERG | 1 |
| DEREK L. SCHMIDT | 1 |
| TYLER R. GREEN | 1 |
| STEPHEN B. BRIGHT | 1 |
| TIMOTHY CROOKS | 1 |
| JUAN C. BASOMBRIO | 1 |
| JULIA DOYLE BERNHARDT | 1 |
| MARK C. FLEMING | 1 |
| ROMAN MARTINEZ | 1 |
| ROY T. ENGLERT, JR. | 1 |
| ERIC E. MURPHY | 1 |
| E. JOSHUA ROSENKRANZ | 1 |
| THEODORE B. OLSON | 1 |
| JONATHAN F. MITCHELL | 1 |
| CHRISTOPHER LANDAU | 1 |
| NICOLE A. SAHARSKY | 1 |
| NEAL K. KATYAL | 1 |
| SCOTT A. KELLER | 1 |
| MATTHEW T. FINDLEY | 1 |
| MATTHEW D. McGILL | 1 |
| CARTER PHILLIPS | 1 |
| CURTIS E. GANNON | 1 |
| MARK FROST | 1 |
| DANIEL T. HANSMEIER | 1 |
| M. REED HOPPER | 1 |
| JOHN M. DUGGAN | 1 |
| MARK BRNOVICH | 1 |
| STEPHANIE TOTI | 1 |
| JEFFREY B. WALL | 1 |
| HOWARD SREBNICK | 1 |
| KATHRYN KEENA | 1 |
| ANDREW J. PINCUS | 1 |
| STEPHEN R. McALLISTER | 1 |
| ANTHONY A. YANG | 1 |
| CHRISTIAN VERGONIS | 1 |
| STUART B. LEV | 1 |
| THOMAS G. SAUNDERS | 1 |
| ADAM G. UNIKOWSKY | 1 |
| NOEL J. FRANCISCO | 1 |
| DAVID C. FREDERICK | 1 |
| RUTH BOTSTEIN | 1 |
| SHAY DVORETZKY | 1 |
| BRIAN WOLFMAN | 1 |
| AMIR H. ALI | 1 |
| MICHAEL B. KIMBERLY | 1 |
| GREGORY G. KATSAS | 1 |
| GREGORY G. GARRE | 1 |
| DONALD B. VERRILLI | 1 |
| ELIZABETH B. PRELOGAR | 1 |
| DALE SCHOWENGERDT | 1 |
| THOMAS R. McCARTHY | 1 |
| MARK D. PLAISANCE | 1 |
On Twitter: @AdamSFeldman
Empirical SCOTUS 
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