A seemingly innocuous Supreme Court case in 2017 looking at the narrow issue of time bars in class action lawsuits saw two giants of Supreme Court advocacy duke it out before the nine justices. California Public Employees’ Retirement System v. ANZ Securities pit Tom Goldstein of then-named Goldstein and Russell for the Petitioner CALPERS against…
Tag: Lisa Blatt
Two Pieces to the Puzzle: Long Conference Petitions and Granted Cases for OT 2023
[completed with the help of Jake Truscott who gathered data for this post] The 2022 Supreme Court term concluded this past June. Since then, the Justices have been on break. In the past several justices go on vacation (some of the downsides to such travel have been documented as well) while others teach in exciting…
The Supreme Court: Where Everyone Knows Your Name
At any level of legal jurisdiction, the American court system tends to operate as a system of working groups. That is, even as particular litigants and litigation are constantly changing, a core group of actors – i.e., judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys – tend to retain a consistent presence in the courtroom. The Supreme Court…
About this Term: OT 2019
Even though not all briefs are filed in cases that will be argued before the Supreme Court this term, the interest level in the Court’s cases is at an apex. There was a lot of hype leading into this term, as it is the first where all nine sitting justices have at least a term…
A Dearth of Female Attorneys at Supreme Court Oral Arguments
Female attorneys have a long history arguing before the Supreme Court dating back to Belva Lockwood’s argument in 1880. While Lockwood’s argument helped proverbially break the glass ceiling for women to practice before the Supreme Court, such opportunities have proven difficult to come by as female attorneys only make up a small fraction of the…
Highly Citable
Attorneys before the Supreme Court have multiple goals. Whether the ultimate goal is winning a case, affecting public policy, or testing the constitutionality of a piece of legislation, good counsel get the justices’ attention. How they get the justices’ attention varies. Some engender attention through their regular experience before the Court while others through the…
Attorneys and Firms in the Supreme Court 2016
The Supreme Court wrapped up oral arguments for the 2016 term on April 26, 2017 with arguments in Sandoz Inc. v. Amgen and Maslenjak v. United States. These marked the 63rd and 64th arguments the Justices heard this term – down five from the 69 arguments the Justices heard a year prior. While the Court…
Attorney Arguments 2016/2017
The Supreme Court released its final argument calendar of the term with thirteen arguments slated for April. Although this term started out slow, most likely due to the Justices’ apprehension at the possibility of reaching equal divisions in cases, case grants picked up pace especially after the presidential election. Though we won’t see a new…
Bringing Cases in an Unusual Term: Top Petitioners and Cert Amici
There are certain criteria that indicate or signal the importance of a Supreme Court petition to the Court –experienced SCOTUS counsel on the cert briefs, federal governmental involvement, and cert stage amicus briefs – just to name a few. Although there is no surefire way to predict whether the Court will grant cert in a…
Four Takeaways From this Term’s 2016 SCOTUS Oral Arguments
We are experiencing a changing of the guard in the Supreme Court. There has been an usually long period with an eight-Justice dynamic which will very possibly continue on through the end of the Court’s current Term. Without some unprecedented occurrence, President-Elect Trump will nominate the next Justice to the Supreme Court who will likely…
Taking Stock: New Cases and an Emerging Picture of the Term
With the “long conference” before the beginning of the 2016 Supreme Court Term complete the Court has granted what could be the last set of cases before the Justices start hearing oral arguments next Tuesday (Oct. 4). The Court has two months of hearings scheduled with other cases still lacking oral argument dates. The Court’s…
The Summer Pipeline
Supreme Court Justices make few official decisions during the summer. Generally, these relate to emergency matter that require quick injunctive responses. For lawyers, however, the situation is quite different (as the saying goes “time and tide wait for no man”). While the Court does not rule on cases during the summer, cert petitions accumulate just…
Empirical SCOTUS 