WASHINGTON (AP) — No woman has appeared before the Supreme Court more often than Lisa Blattwho will present his 50th argument this month.
No lawyer, male or female, has managed to do this with the same blend of humor, passion and style. And his win-loss record isn’t bad either: 40-6, with two cases still to be decided.
It provokes laughter and sometimes sharp reactions from the judges, who seem to appreciate Blatt’s presentations as much as they respect his legal acumen.
When Blatt joked about it Justice Samuel Alito was his ‘enforcer’ With a friendly question in a case involving an alleged retaliatory arrest that was argued last month, the judge said: “I am in no way trying to be your enforcer.” …You don’t need it in any way.
The Supreme Court’s guide for lawyers arguing before the justices essentially warns against trying to imitate Blatt.
“Attempts at humor usually fail. The same goes for attempts at familiarity,” advises the guide. “Avoid emotional speeches and loud, passionate pleas. A well-reasoned and logical presentation, without resorting to histrionics, is easier for listeners to understand.
She can be surprisingly informal, in one case referring to the nation’s highest court as “you guys.” She is often blunt, once telling Justice Elena Kagan that her question was factually and fundamentally wrong. She resorted to personal contact, in one instance where she felt her Harvard-educated opponent was being condescending. “I didn’t go to a fancy law school, but I’m very confident in my representation of case law,” the University of Texas graduate said.
“Texas is an excellent law school” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, just as the proceedings were drawing to a close and before the court gave Blatt a unanimous victory.
Blatt can also be hyperbolic, warning last year that a ruling against his client, a Turkish bank, would be “borderline, you know, cataclysmic.” A ruling recognizing a large portion of Oklahoma as tribal land would have a “life-changing” effect. consequences, she said in 2018. Judges risked causing “insanity, confusion and chaos” if they ruled in favor of a high school student suspended from the cheerleading squad for a post vulgar on social networks.
Clients continue to hire him and the court continues to agree to hear his cases, said Paul Clement, Blatt’s friend and former Justice Department boss.
“She has this kind of inimitable style, she’s very confident in her own style and the judges love her,” said Clement, who has argued more than 100 times at the Supreme Court. Only a dozen active attorneys who presented up to 50 arguments.
Blatt, 59, makes no apologies.
“Oral argumentation is like truth serum. Under the stress of their questioning, you cannot become someone you are not,” she said in an email. “I think I’m very direct, but ultimately my style reflects the fact that I want to win and want the Court to put itself in the shoes of the party I represent.”
She heads the Supreme Court and appeals practice at law firm Williams and Connolly, where her husband is also a partner. They have two children who study law. Blatt argued just over half of his high court cases in private practice, the rest as a Justice Department attorney.
When she made her first court appearance in December 1996, at the age of 31, there were two women on the court, Justices Sandra Day O’Connor and Ginsburg. Blatt had clerked for Ginsburg on the federal appeals court in Washington.
Today, four of the nine judges are women, a record. The percentage of women arguing in front of them is lower, although this number has increased significantly this year. Since October, just over a third of arguments have been made by women, compared to less than a quarter of arguments the previous year.
Blatt is one of the few women in private practice to regularly argue before the Supreme Court, and she has decried the lack of diversity. Last term, two women in his firm argued three cases between them, and his former partner Charles McCloud is one of the few black men to argue before the court in recent years. McCloud now works for the Department of Justice.
She also sparked controversy in 2018, when as a “liberal Democrat and feminist,” Blatt publicly supported the nomination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. She called him “the best choice liberals could reasonably hope for” at a time when Republicans controlled the Senate and White House. Blatt testified before college professor Christine Blasey Ford came forward with the explosive allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were in high school. Kavanaugh has denied any wrongdoing.
Opponents of Kavanaugh’s confirmation complained that Blatt was speaking out because she often represents wealthy clients at the Supreme Court. In a tweet at the time, Brian Fallon, then a member of the progressive legal reform group Demand Justice, wrote that Blatt put “corporate interests ahead of progressive causes.”
Corporate clients make up a significant portion of Blatt’s business and include Google, Atlantic Richfield Co., Bank of America and Starbucks. She is representing the coffee chain in what will be its 50th argument in a dispute with the National Labor Relations Board over workers’ efforts to unionize at a store in Memphis, Tennessee.
On Monday, Blatt represents James Snyder, the former mayor of Portage, Indiana, who is appealing his corruption conviction. Other clients include Lynn Goldsmith, the photographer who won a copyright battle involving an Andy Warhol image of the singer Prince, and state and local government officials.
The case she defended last month that sparked the “law enforcement” exchange with Alito involved a city council member in Castle Hills, a suburb of San Antonio, Texas, who claims having been arrested on a trumped-up charge because she spoke out against the mayor and his allies.
Blatt, representing the mayor, said it would be easy to commit crimes with impunity if the court ruled against the mayor.
“I mean, I would really advise all criminals to put a political bumper sticker on their car,” she said with a laugh.
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