Hogan Lovells senior associate Sean Marotta had just arrived at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for his 10 a.m. oral argument on Monday when he had a sinking realization: He left his outline and cheat sheet in the office printer.

But partner Jessica Ellsworth had his back, speed-walking the half-mile back to Hogan's downtown D.C. office to retrieve his notes—a literal example of the firm's appellate partners going out of their way to support their associates.

As for Marotta, he cruised to victory on behalf of Ford Global Technologies in a preclusion and personal jurisdiction case when the court on Tuesday affirmed judgment for his client without issuing an opinion.

The eighth-year associate has amassed a record of appellate arguments that rivals many partners at other firms. On March 9, he was before the D.C. Circuit representing the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers in a technical dispute with the Surface Transportation Board. Next week, it's the Texas Supreme Court for Ford once again. Marotta will rack up his 20th appellate oral argument when he appears before the New York Appellate Division on March 26 in yet another personal jurisdiction fight for Ford.

To be clear, these are not billion-dollar, bet-the-company cases. But Hogan and its appellate group headed by Neal Katyal and Cate Stetson have proven extraordinarily generous about sharing the appellate spotlight—not just with Marotta, but all 11 of the appellate group associates. The goal is for all of them to get at least one oral argument a year.

Watching them succeed “is the best experience in the world,” Katyal said. But it hasn't happened by chance.

When he left the Office of the Solicitor General in 2011, Katyal said he interviewed with about 30 prospective firms and used the meetings as a chance to learn about their best practices. One firm said it steeply discounted its rates if clients would allow (closely-supervised) associates to handle select oral arguments.

“I asked Hogan in the interview process if they'd be willing to do this, and they said yes,” Katyal said. He's also cultivated relationship with circuit court clerks to get the nod when court-appointed pro bono representation is needed.

The benefits flow both ways—associates get career-advancing appellate argument time, Hogan creates a home-grown bench of experienced appellate advocates and becomes more attractive to top associate recruits.

Yet here's one irony: On paper, Marotta was not obviously one of them. As he points out, he went to law school at William & Mary—a wonderful school, “but it's not Yale. And I clerked for the New Jersey Appellate Division, not the Supreme Court.”

But he dazzled as a summer associate and then during his initial four-month rotation in the appellate group after he joined the firm in 2011.

“I had an elitist hiring bias,” said Katyal, who wasn't at Hogan when Marotta was a summer associate. “The other partners said 'trust us' and they were 100 percent right. It was a good lesson.”

Marotta already seems inclined to pay it forward. Last summer, he put out an open offer to have coffee with any summer associates or law interns in Washington. Fifteen of them took him up on his offer, meeting one-on-one to discuss everything “from, 'What's the future of the Chevron Doctrine in the current court?' to people who were asking for job search tips,” he told The National Law Journal.

One key to the appellate group's success from Katyal on down is rigorous, relentless moot courts.

“The goal is never to get a question in real court that you haven't had in moot,” Marotta said. “The moot questions are harder and we do it much longer.”

As for the advice on handling nerves when it's time for the real thing, Katyal said, “I'm nervous every time I stand up in court. It's not necessarily a bad thing … You're nervous for a reason, because the stakes are high.”

He tells his associates what a mentor once told him: “After 30 seconds, if you've done your work, it will go away.”