Professional Reading: Advocacy Matters Before and Within the Supreme Court

Scholarship in the Press

From Legal Times: "Dramatic new research by Georgetown University Law Center professor Richard Lazarus shows that more and more Supreme Court cases are brought and argued by the seasoned veterans who have honed Supreme Court practice into a fine, and exclusive, art form. Lazarus claims that the increasing dominance of the Supreme Court Bar is beginning to have an impact on the Court's doctrine. Increasingly, Lazarus says, the modern-day Court is ruling in favor of "monied interests more able to pay for such expertise."  [RJ]

Georgetown University law professor Richard James Lazarus' Advocacy Matters Before and Within the Supreme Court: Transforming the Court By Transforming the Bar is now available from SSRN. Here's the abstract: 

During the past two decades, the Supreme Court has witnessed the emergence of an elite private sector group of attorneys who are dominating advocacy before the Court to an extent not witnessed since the early nineteenth century. This development is significant for the simple reason that advocacy matters, including before the Supreme Court. Better, more effective advocates influence the development of the law and there is generally no court where such advocacy can wield more far-reaching influence than the Supreme Court. And that is precisely what the modern Supreme Court Bar has quietly and increasingly been accomplishing in recent years. The Court grants the petitions filed by the expert members of the Bar at a significantly higher rate and they also prevail on the merits more frequently. This article documents the extent of the modern Bar's domination of the Court's docket, arguments, and rulings, considers the extent to which business interests who serve as the Bar's primary clients are enjoying heightened success before the Court as a result, and suggests ways of promoting a fairer allocation of Supreme Court advocacy expertise in the future.

[JH]