Judicial Notice (04.28.24): Be Careful What You Wish For

A judge’s hot-mic mishap, a new firm with $7 million in profits per partner, my contrarian take on Trump immunity, and other legal news from the week that was.

Susman Godfrey throws great parties—which you can do when you earn $7 million a year in profits per partner (photo by David Lat).

Welcome to Original Jurisdiction, the latest legal publication by me, David Lat. You can learn more about Original Jurisdiction by reading its About page, and you can email me at davidlat@substack.com. This is a reader-supported publication; you can subscribe by clicking here. Thanks!

This week involved no travel for me, which I welcomed. I enjoyed speaking at the 2024 Spring Institute of the Northern California Association of Law Libraries (NOCALL)—thanks to them for having me—but I appeared virtually.

I also used the wonders of technology to record an excellent new episode of Movers, Shakers & Rainmakers, in which Zach Sandberg and I interviewed Melissa (Lafsky) Saleh. Today she leads the marketing and communications team at FairPlay, which uses AI-powered tools to help financial institutions increase both fairness and profits, but we first crossed paths 20 years ago, as pseudonymous lawyer-bloggers—she at Opinionista, and I at Underneath Their Robes. It was a blast catching up and discussing Saleh’s fascinating and unusual career path from law to writing to startups.

The latest testimonial for Original Jurisdiction comes from Nancy Rapoport, a UNLV Distinguished Professor and the Garman Turner Gordon Professor of Law at the William S. Boyd School of Law: “David Lat’s analysis is always spot-on and nuanced, and his writing style is lyrical. If I want to go for snarky, I go to another author. If I want to learn something interesting, I read Original Jurisdiction.” (I used to do snarky—see Underneath Their Robes and Above the Law—but as someone turning 50 next year, I’ve ceded that territory to folks who don’t get Dysport injections twice a year.)

Now, on to the news.

Lawyer of the Week: Lisa Blatt.

Speaking of people who aren’t afraid to acknowledge aesthetic assistance—I wasn’t the only one who noted the reference to “my plastic surgeon” in her April 15 oral argument in Snyder v. United States—congratulations to Lisa Blatt, chair of the Supreme Court and appellate practice at Williams & Connolly. Last Tuesday—appearing before the Court in Starbucks Corp. v. McKinney, in which she’s likely to prevail—she became the first woman in history to argue 50 SCOTUS cases.

Not only that, but Blatt has an impressive win-loss record: 41-5 (with four cases pending), per Bloomberg Law. As I asked her on the Original Jurisdiction podcast, “Are you the ‘winningest’ Supreme Court advocate with a certain number of arguments below your belt, like 25 or 30 or 40?” Blatt politely demurred—but if any of you know of a more victorious repeat player at One First Street, I’m all ears.

What I appreciate most about Blatt is how she has succeeded by being so utterly, unapologetically herself. She’s bold, brash, blunt—and brilliant. You might not agree with all her choices at the podium—despite my great admiration for her, I think she occasionally crosses a line—but you can’t deny that she’s a true original.

As Blatt told Jimmy Hoover of the National Law Journal, she might be the first woman to hit 50 arguments, but she won’t be the last. In our podcast interview—vintage Lisa Blatt, frank and funny, one of my favorite episodes to record—she gave a shoutout to the “gloriously fantastic” Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar (not even 45 years old, with 30-plus arguments under her morning coat).

So yes, in the years to come, many other women will join the “More Than 50 SCOTUS Arguments Club.” But there won’t be another Lisa Blatt.

Other lawyers in the news:

• Speaking of Supreme Court arguments, if you listened to the proceedings in the Trump immunity case (discussed below) and want to know more about the advocates, check out this Law360 profile of John Sauer and Michael Dreeben—who represented Donald Trump and Special Counsel Jack Smith, respectively. A 30-year veteran of the Solicitor General’s Office—before leaving government to join O’Melveny & Myers in 2020, then departing O’Melveny to join the Office of the Special Counsel in 2023—Dreeben has argued more than 100 cases before the Court, with a win-loss record of 60-42.

• Riddle me this: how do you not file federal tax returns for four years, covering more than $54 million in income, and expect to get away with it? Maybe I should drive one town over to Chatham, New Jersey, and ask John Goggins, former general counsel of Moody’s—who pleaded guilty to tax offenses that make Hunter Biden look like a piker.

In memoriam:

• Michael Gertzman, former co-chair of the litigation department at Paul, Weiss, passed away at 60.

• Peter Schey, a leading advocate for migrants’ rights, passed away at 77.

• Scott Kilburg, chief marketing officer at Sidley Austin, passed away at 51.

May they rest in peace.

Judge of the Week: Judge Nancy Mulder.

More than four years after Zoom, Teams, and similar video-conferencing tools become ubiquitous, we’re still making mute-button mistakes. I made one myself in my talk on Friday to NOCALL, forgetting to hit mute after finishing my remarks (and subjecting the attendees to the sounds of my furious typing—sorry about that). But my faux pas wasn’t as problematic as the error made by Judge Nancy Mulder of Dallas County, Texas—in a livestreamed murder trial.