Nearing 50 Supreme Court docket arguments in, lawyer Lisa Blatt retains successful

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WASHINGTON (AP) — No lady has appeared extra usually earlier than the Supreme Court docket than Lisa Blatt, who will make her fiftieth argument this month.

No lawyer, male or feminine, has finished it with fairly the identical mixture of humor, ardour and magnificence. And her win-loss report isn’t unhealthy, both: 40-6, with two circumstances but to be determined.

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She elicits laughs and the occasional sharp response from the justices, who appear to get pleasure from Blatt’s shows as a lot as they respect her authorized acumen.

When Blatt joked that Justice Samuel Alito was being her “enforcer” with a pleasant query in a case a few claimed retaliatory arrest that was argued final month, the justice stated, “I’m not attempting to be your enforcer by any means. … You don’t want one, by any means.”

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The Supreme Court docket’s information for legal professionals who’re arguing earlier than the justices basically warns in opposition to attempting to emulate Blatt.

“Makes an attempt at humor normally fall flat. The identical is true of makes an attempt at familiarity,” the information advises. “Keep away from emotional oration and loud, impassioned pleas. A well-reasoned and logical presentation with out resort to histrionics is simpler for listeners to grasp.”

She may be strikingly casual, in a single case referring to the best court docket within the land as “you guys.” She is commonly blunt, as soon as telling Justice Elena Kagan that her query was factually and basically unsuitable. She has resorted to the private, in a single case the place she felt her Harvard-educated opponent was being condescending. “I didn’t go to a elaborate legislation college, however I’m very assured in my illustration of the case legislation,” the College of Texas graduate stated.

“Texas is a positive legislation college,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg stated, simply because the arguments have been ending and earlier than the court docket handed Blatt a unanimous win.

Blatt additionally may be hyperbolic, cautioning final yr {that a} choice in opposition to her consumer, a Turkish financial institution, could be “borderline, , cataclysmic.” A ruling that acknowledged a big swath of Oklahoma as tribal land would have “earth-shattering” penalties, she stated in 2018. The justices risked inflicting “insanity, confusion, and chaos” in the event that they dominated for a highschool pupil who was suspended from the cheerleading squad over a vulgar social media submit.

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Shoppers preserve hiring her and the court docket retains agreeing to listen to her circumstances, stated Paul Clement, Blatt’s pal and onetime boss on the Justice Division.

“She simply has this sort of inimitable model, and she or he’s very assured in her personal model and the justices adore it,” stated Clement, who has argued greater than 100 occasions on the Supreme Court docket. Solely a dozen lively legal professionals who’ve made as many as 50 arguments.

Blatt, 59, makes no apologies.

“Oral argument is like fact serum. Underneath the stress of their questioning, you possibly can’t develop into somebody you aren’t,” she stated in an e mail. “I do assume I’m very direct however at backside, my model displays the truth that I need to win and the Court docket to step into the footwear of the occasion I’m representing.”

She heads the Supreme Court docket and appellate observe on the Williams and Connolly legislation agency, the place her husband is also a associate. They’ve two youngsters in legislation college. Blatt has argued simply over half her excessive court docket circumstances in non-public observe, the remaining as a Justice Division lawyer.

When she made her first look on the court docket in December 1996 on the age of 31, there have been two ladies on the court docket, Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ginsburg. Blatt had been a clerk for Ginsburg on the federal appeals court docket in Washington.

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Immediately, 4 of the 9 justices are ladies, a report. The proportion of ladies who argue earlier than them is decrease, although the quantity has jumped markedly this time period. Since October, simply over one-third of the arguments have been made by ladies, in contrast with below one-quarter of arguments the yr earlier than.

Blatt is considered one of solely a handful of ladies in non-public observe who often argue on the Supreme Court docket and she or he has known as out the dearth of range. Final time period, two ladies in her agency argued three circumstances between them and her onetime associate Charles McCloud is likely one of the few Black males who’ve argued on the court docket in recent times. McCloud now works for the Justice Division.

She additionally courted controversy in 2018, when as a self-described “liberal Democrat and feminist,” Blatt publicly backed Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court docket. She known as him “your best option that liberals might fairly hope for” at a time when Republicans managed the Senate and the White Home. Blatt testified earlier than school professor Christine Blasey Ford got here ahead with the explosive allegation that Kavanaugh had sexually assaulted her whereas they have been in highschool. Kavanaugh has denied any misconduct.

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Opponents of Kavanaugh’s affirmation complained that Blatt spoke up as a result of she usually represents rich purchasers on the Supreme Court docket. In a tweet on the time, Brian Fallon, then with the progressive judicial reform group Demand Justice, wrote that Blatt places “company pursuits forward of progressive causes.”

Company purchasers are an essential a part of Blatt’s enterprise and embody Google, Atlantic Richfield Co., Financial institution of America and Starbucks. She is representing the espresso chain in what will probably be her fiftieth argument in a dispute with the Nationwide Labor Relations Board over efforts by staff to unionize at a retailer in Memphis, Tennessee.

On Monday, Blatt is representing James Snyder, the previous mayor of Portage, Indiana, who’s interesting his bribery conviction. Different purchasers embody Lynn Goldsmith, the photographer who gained a copyright struggle involving an Andy Warhol picture of the singer Prince, and state and native authorities officers.

The case she argued final month that prompted the “enforcer” alternate with Alito concerned a metropolis council member within the San Antonio suburb of Fort Hills, Texas, who contends she was arrested on a trumped-up cost as a result of she spoke up in opposition to the mayor and his allies.

Blatt, representing the mayor, stated it might be simple to get away with crimes if the court docket guidelines in opposition to the mayor.

“I imply, I actually would advise each legal to place a, , political bumper sticker on their automotive,” she stated, to laughter.

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