It is relatively rare for U.S. Supreme Court justices to mention an amicus curiae brief during oral argument. But it almost never happens that a justice will identify the brief by the name of the lawyer who wrote it.

It occurred last month with a brief by UCLA Law School professor Richard Re. And it happened again on Wednesday during the high-profile argument in Trump v. Hawaii, the contentious dispute over the Trump administration's proclamation keeping certain categories of travelers from entering the United States.

Justice Stephen Breyer

Justice Stephen Breyer, exploring exceptions to the ban, asked U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco at one point during the argument about “families in the Lisa Blatt brief” who were trying to get to the United States for medical treatment and other reasons but were turned away.

As fleeting as it was, Breyer's reference to Blatt, a veteran advocate who leads Arnold & Porter's appellate and Supreme Court practice, is a nearly priceless compliment within the Supreme Court community—and not just because of its rarity. It also conveys the court's comfort level with her work and signals that she is so well-known that her name alone can be a shorthand identifier.

Coincidentally, much of that Supreme Court legal community—including Blatt—gathered at Georgetown University Law Center later in the day Wednesday at an annual event hosted by its Supreme Court Institute. Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Justice Elena Kagan were also on hand.

Lawyers by the dozens congratulated Blatt for the Breyer mention. Blatt had not attended the oral argument but said her email account filled up with friends telling her about it. She was pleased by the recognition of the brief, which deals with the key issue of waivers from the travel ban. “You sometimes feel with an amicus brief, does anybody care?” she said.

Breyer was not the only participant in the argument who was interested in Blatt's brief, which she filed on behalf of four Iranian-American organizations led by the PARS Equality Center.

Hogan Lovells partner Neal Katyal, who argued against the travel ban, twice picked up on Breyer's reference. In one, he stated that “This waiver process has excluded—and you have this in the PARS Equality brief at page 14—a 10-year-old with cerebral palsy who wants to come to the United States to save her life and she can't move or talk. The 10-year-old was denied a waiver.”

Later in the argument, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked, “How do you deal with the example that was brought up of the child with cerebral palsy?”

The same kind of imprimatur bestowed on Blatt and Re was given to Sidley Austin partner Carter Phillips in the 2003 affirmative action case Grutter v. Bollinger arguments. Justice John Paul Stevens referred to “the Carter Phillips brief,” an amicus brief filed on behalf of former military officers, and Justice David Souter called it “Mr. Phillips' brief.”

As it happened, while Phillips' name was on the brief, the counsel of record was his colleague Virginia Seitz. “In all fairness, she worked tirelessly on the brief, along with about a dozen younger lawyers,” Phillips said after the argument.

During the same argument, Chief Justice William Rehnquist also telegraphed familiarity when he asked a question of lawyer Maureen Mahoney, calling her “Maureen” rather than “counsel” or “Ms. Mahoney.” The Latham & Watkins partner, who had clerked for Rehnquist in 1979, answered the question and wisely called him “Your Honor,” not “Bill.”

Read more:

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