Most U.S. Supreme Court cases are born the old-fashioned way: an aggrieved party goes to a lawyer to appeal a lower court decision, and the lawyer petitions the court.

But the high-profile case of South Dakota v. Wayfair, involving state taxation of online retail sales, unfolded in a very different way. Lawyers sought out the clients—states, in this case—who were willing to lose below so they could potentially win before the Supreme Court.

Eric Citron, a partner in the Washington appellate boutique Goldstein & Russell, worked with state legislators to pass laws that would contravene the high court's long-standing Quill v. North Dakota precedent that said sales taxes should not be imposed on retailers who have no physical presence in the state.

South Dakota did just that in 2016, passing a sales tax law that violated the 1992 Quill precedent and included procedures to fast-track ensuing litigation. The state quickly sued retailers that were not paying the new tax, including the home furnishings giant Wayfair Inc. Citing Quill, the retailers fought back. As intended, South Dakota lost and the state's appeal swiftly made its way to the high court. The case is set for argument on April 17.

“We built the case from the ground up,” Goldstein & Russell founder Tom Goldstein said at a Georgetown University Law Center panel discussion in January. “We designed the legislation. Got the legislation passed. We went into court. We told the courts that 'hello, we want to lose.'”

According to a January 2016 report in State Tax Notes, Citron gave advice on shaping anti-Quill legislation at a meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures Task Force on State and Local Taxation, along with Joe Rinzel, then vice president of the Retail Industry Leaders Association.

The retail association wants Quill overturned to create a level playing field where sales by internet retailers and brick-and-mortar stores are both taxed. Citron is now counsel of record for South Dakota.

Goldstein, who has argued in 41 Supreme Court cases and founded SCOTUSblog, was also an early expert on filing cert petitions to the Supreme Court during a “sweet spot” period when chances for getting a case granted and argued during the current term were high.

“We timed the case from the enactment of the legislation, all the way through, so that it would make the last conference in January and could be argued this term,” Goldstein told the Georgetown audience. The petition was filed at the court last October, discussed by the justices at their private conference on Jan. 5 and 12, and granted on Jan. 12.

The effort to create the Wayfair case was prompted in part by the decadeslong inaction of Congress on the issue of taxing internet retailers. “They've been looking at it carefully for the last 25 years,” Goldstein said sarcastically in January.

The opponents of Quill are also optimistic now because of comments from Justices Anthony Kennedy and Neil Gorsuch in cases from 2015 and 2016, respectively, that indicated they think the decision is antiquated and should be reconsidered.

The unorthodox path of the Wayfair case drew outrage in the early briefing of the case.

The lawyer for Wayfair and other online retailers, George Isaacson of the Maine law firm Brann & Isaacson, called the petition an “oddly-manufactured appeal” and an “unprecedented manipulation of the court system.” Isaacson also asserted that the fast-tracking led to a skimpy factual record for the high court to evaluate. South Dakota disagrees, contending it made “clear findings regarding all the issues.”

A brief by NetChoice called the litigation “a contrived and willful challenge to existing Supreme Court precedent by the state.”

Americans for Tax Reform protested, “It offends the separation of powers between the federal government and the states if a state responds to a binding decision of this court (or any state or federal court) by throwing its proverbial toys out of the pram.”

But is it improper or even unusual for states to pass contrarian laws aimed at forcing the Supreme Court to confront and rethink its own precedents?

“It happens all the time,” said former Maine Attorney General James Tierney, now a Harvard Law School lecturer who advises state attorneys general. Tierney did not want to comment on the Wayfair case specifically, but said that in general, it is not uncommon for states to pass laws they know would be tested at the Supreme Court. State laws on abortion rights and immigration, for example, have been passed in defiance of court precedents, Tierney noted.

But Tierney said that in recent years, he has detected more of “a defiance, a roughness in the air” in cases brought to the Supreme Court aimed at busting precedents. “People are getting more feisty, more interested in challenging all this,” he said. “You have these large interest groups that say, 'We don't care, let's push it.'”