More Competition for Supreme Court Stars

competition is ramping up there. Joining me is Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson, Bloomberg Law Supreme Court reporter. So Kimberly tell us how this group emerged in the eighties to counter the expertise of the attorneys in the Solicitor General's office. Sure, June, Well, the situation in the nineteen eighties was quite different than um, what you've just described. It was really a hodgepodge of attorneys beyond the Solicitor General's Office, which is uh, the

office that represents the federal government. You know, usually if you would handle an appeal at the lower courts, you would also handle it at the Supreme Court. Um, there were really only a handful of attorneys who really specialized in Supreme Court practice. I think one name that everybody will most likely know is Chief Justice John Roberts was

one of those. But that's really different today, where most of the litigation is handled either by attorneys at the Solicitor General's Office or UM in some kind of Supreme Court focus practice. And I'm not sure if that was the point of Supreme Court practice was to kind of counter the Solicitor General's office, but it certainly has been UM.

One of the results is that the Solicitor General's Office hasn't done as well since these UM focused practices have shown up, and you're seeing a trend in firm setting up dedicated Supreme Court practices. Well we are now there are already a lot of players UM in this space, so the numbers are small, but they are growing. And so just earlier this year we heard, you know, the New York megafirm Paul weiss Uh started a Supreme Court

focus UM. So it's definitely something that's growing. Does it seem odd that it's growing and they're setting up new practices when there were fewer cases to sort of fight over Since the Roberts Court is taking far less cases than the Court used to. Well, right, And it's actually kind of interesting that since the nineteen eighties the number of cases that the Supreme Court has been hearing has fallen quite a bit. It used to be somewhere around a hundred and fifty. Last term it was closer to

seventy UM. But you know, attorneys who practiced in this field say, that's one reason why it's important not just to have a Supreme Court focused appellate team, but one that focuses on the lower federal appellate courts too. So are these practices moneymakers? Well, they can be, and I think a big component of that is not trying just for the small slice of Supreme Court business that there is UM. But you know, people who practice in the space say it can really be a compliment two affirms,

other litigation and even business activities. You know, you don't want to turn away a client whose case you've handled UM from the regulatory stage to trial to the pellet courts just because you don't have the Supreme Court specialty. You talked to Tom Golstein, who is a well known Supreme Court practitioner, and he says, lawyers can't build as many hours to clients with a Supreme Court case as they would for a trial for example. Well that's right.

So you know, if you think about a trial at a big law firm, you're gonna need a lot of young associates to do a lot of the grunt work. There's all these depositions to do, there's usually millions of pages of discovery work. Um, there's lots of witnesses to prep. But that's not going to be the case with a Supreme Court case. And that's why, you know, they say it's really important to get Supreme Court and a pellet advocates involved in all stages of the litigation, including at

the at the trial phase. And does it give a firm a sort of panache to have a Supreme Court practice? Well? Absolutely, I mean this is really when attorneys are at the top of their game. Um. You know, it's often the first thing that clients UH see of your law firm. It involves really high stakes and high profile issues. But beyond clients, it's really important for getting the really top talent.

If somebody is looking for the opportunity to work on appeals, having a Supreme Court practice is you know, something that was really attracted some of the cream of the crop. This term, just five private Washington attorneys argued in a quarter of the Supreme Courts cases. And the justices know their names. And what kind of an advantage does it give them knowing the justices and the justices knowing them, Well,

it gives them a really big advantage. Not you know, most obviously, I think in the arguments they know these justices and what kinds of questions they want to ask, and they know that the justices are looking beyond just this particular case and can provide them with broader answers. But we see even in the outcome of the cases um.

There was a recent study that showed that Supreme Court um experts actually have a better record UM than individuals who are practicing just their first or second time before the justices. This term, only seventeen percent of Supreme Court cases were argued by women. Are any of the firm's addressing that lack of gender diversity among the advocates at

the court? Well, you know, the lack of diversity is not just a problem with advocates before the Supreme Court, but it really um infects the entire um Judiciary and the you know, the the law um as a whole. And so we see the issue with law firms trying to hold onto female associates UM at the partnership and we even see it UM in the Federal judiciary. Just a third of the judges in the Federal Judiciary are women UM. And that's really just looking at one angle

of diversity. There are a lot of other angles of diversity that we're not even touching upon. So it's a problem that firms are trying to address UM. But whether they're there will be successful in the future remains to be seen. They certainly haven't been so yet. And Kimberly, is it possible for a boutique law for arm to handle a lot of Supreme Court cases or are they

reserved for these big law firms. What we see the Supreme Court focus UM expanding to really all sizes of law firms, you know, from the big Paul Weiss of the world that I talked about earlier that are really a mega firm UM to the solo practitioners. There's one UM new solo practitioner on the beat who has gotten three of the courts seventy arguments just a few terms ago,

which is a really big chunk of the work. And so you know, a lot of advocates I spoke to UM who work at these smaller firms say it can really be perfect for a smaller firm, especially UM, a bookish attorney who doesn't want to be around a lot of other people. Thanks so much for joining us. Kimberly. That's Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson, Bloomberg Supreme Court Reporter. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcast, SoundCloud and on

Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Basso. This is Bloomberg given the patent to the end the end of compe