oral arguments Archives - Memos and Mirth

Three minutes of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

April 26, 2018

The lines in front of the Supreme Court right before the Wayfair v. South Dakota oral arguments.

It’s shortly after 3 a.m. and I’m walking across D.C. in a black suit carrying two narrow duffle bags.

I am prepared to 1) get mugged, or 2) explain to a police officer that I’m not a hitman, but rather a tax lawyer headed to the Supreme Court.

The duffle bags contain branded folded chairs from my law firm. I am on my way to a hotel to meet an associate lawyer who flew in from one of our other offices.

I make it to the hotel without getting mugged or stopped by a cop.

The associate is outside of the hotel with a woman from a competing law firm in New York. Introductions are made and we then have the most ridiculous time getting a cab – the three taxis in front of the hotel are not interested in driving us only 2 miles to court. They would rather wait for a more lucrative fare to a far flung airport.

We eventually flag a taxi and make it the Supreme Court plaza.

It’s about 4 a.m. and there are already dozens of people camped out in line.

Professional line-standers in front of the Supreme Court.

The lines in front of the Supreme Court before the Wayfair v. South Dakota oral arguments.

The case that attracted this odd mix of tax lawyers, tourists, and professional line-standers is South Dakota v. Wayfair. This is the first major state and local tax (SALT) case to reach the Supreme Court in about 25 years and my SALT professors have been buzzing about the case ever since my first week at Georgetown’s tax LL.M. program.

In August, I never imagined that I would actually be present at such an important Supreme Court oral argument. (The timing at the end of the semester is terrible.) And yet here I am, in the middle of the night among new coworkers.

2L Spring

Red-eyed oral arguments

February 2, 2010

Yesterday I had two oral arguments for moot court. I spent the majority of the afternoon holed up in the library’s computer lab to prep.

There wasn’t a good reason for me to be in the computer lab since I left my student ID in my gym bag and therefore could not print. I think I just like scribbling holdings and doctrines on pieces of paper while watching more prepared students print.

Here was the view:

That’s Riverside Plaza/The Stacks, a sprawling public housing complex that houses America’s biggest population of Somalis. The building feels like the Death Star is looming over the law library…which felt oddly appropriate during my oral argument prep…
I called Lens Crafters between my oral arguments because my eyes have been blaring-red lately and people are starting to suspect that I’ve lost it.

Me: “My eyes have been really red lately when I wearmy contact lenses and I’m wondering if it’s something I’m doing.”
Optometrist: “Are you following my cleaning, rubbing, and storing directions this time?”
Me: “Yes, yes!”
Optometrist: “Hm. Are your eyes getting dry when you wear contacts?”
Me: “They shouldn’t be. I’ve been going through ClearEyes like mad…”
Optometrist: “You’ve been doing WHAT?”
Me: “…uh…using ClearEyes… you know, the eye drops?”
Optometrist: “…yes. The eye drops you’re not supposed to use while wearing contacts…”
Me: “Doh.”

Outside of the oral argument room I ran into Jill, my opponent.

Me: “Apparently you’re not supposed to use ClearEyes with contacts.”
Jill: “Oh duh! There are special eye drops for contacts…”

Well crap. At least I learn something new every day?

2L Fall

Shitshow

November 19, 2009

I was at work when I decided to check my email. It was 1:30pm, and the plan was to work until 6pm and then go home to prep for tomorrow’s oral argument.

I had about six hours of prep time scheduled for tomorrow, but I figured a few more hours tonight couldn’t hurt.¹

Thank god I decided to check my email, because I saw an email from my moot court instructor reminding me that my oral argument is TODAY AT 4PM!

Almost shat myself. My weeks are planned to the second, and this entire week’s schedule was built around the (mistaken) assumption that the argument was Friday at 4pm. I must have entered the oral argument date incorrectly three weeks ago and (mis)planned according! Everything was ripe with fail.

I shut down my computer, raced to my car, and started practicing my opening statements on the speed drive home.

I slapped on my suit and then bolted to school with an hour to spare before my argument. I didn’t bother bring my laptop to school because it doesn’t print to the school computers anymore. I would just print from the library computers. No problem right?

Wrong!

I went to the library’s fourth floor computer lab – full.
I went to the downstairs computer lab – full, of a class of LLMs or something…
I went back upstairs, and one of my awesome² 3L friends let me print from her computer.

I then went downstairs to one of the non-printing/public computers to do additional research, but the creepy unemployed man³ sitting next to me kept quizzing me on what I was looking up and extolling the virtues of LexisNexis (I was on Westlaw.)

The hobo started to lecture me on the evils of the criminal justice system so I skipped off to the-then abandoned school cafeteria to finish prepping. The cafe closes around 2pm, so there were only a few stray 1Ls, but no hobos…

20 minutes before the argument I had a weird feeling – I felt prepared!

I had EIGHT hours set aside to prep for this stupid oral argument and I felt PREPARED after a single hour! A single hour which was mostly spent running around like a headless chicken! I felt both empowered and hopelessly stupid at the same time, which is exactly how 2Ls are supposed to feel.

The argument went well, and the mistakes my instructor pointed out in his critique were not things that I would have avoided with more prep time. I’m fairly natural during oral arguments, but I have to be careful not to channel Nancy Grace.⁴

I left school around 5pm. I no longer had to spend all day Friday prepping for the oral argument, so I felt like I had an inordinate amount of time on my hands.

And now it’s almost 9pm, and I don’t know what just happened to the past four hours…hm.

¹ I bought a new suit jacket before work because my old one had a bullet hole in it.
² Awesome, life saving, super heroic…
³ Before you start cracking jokes this was NOT a law student but a random “might be homeless” dude.
⁴Which I sort of did when I pleaded with the court not to assist the Senators of Moot in perpetrating a betrayal of the taxpayer’s trust… my moot court instruct was all, “WOAAAAAAAH there skipper!” I wished at that moment that I had a power bob to toss…