John Elwood (above right) outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)

John Elwood, a former law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy and an alum of the U.S. solicitor general's office, will head Arnold & Porter's appellate and Supreme Court practice, continuing a “musical chairs” shuffle at the top echelons of the Supreme Court bar.

Known for his rare ability to make analysis of the Supreme Court fun to read, Elwood replaces Lisa Blatt, who left to head Williams & Connolly's Supreme Court and appellate practice in February. She succeeded Kannon Shanmugam, who went to Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison to launch its Supreme Court and appellate team.

Elwood has argued nine cases at the Supreme Court, five while at the solicitor general's office and four at Vinson & Elkins, where he had worked for the past 10 years. Before that, Elwood was a senior deputy in the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department.

In an interview on Friday, Elwood said he decided to join Arnold & Porter in part because it is “a much bigger platform” that emphasizes litigation.

Another attraction, Elwood said, was that two of his Vinson & Elkins colleagues, Craig Margolis and Tirzah Lollar, moved to Arnold & Porter recently. They, like Elwood, specialize in False Claims Act litigation. But Elwood said the firm has “a very broad range of litigation, and they also do a ton of pro bono, so I think there will be a lot of opportunities to argue across the full range.”

Elwood said he foresees growing Arnold & Porter's appellate practice beyond its current numbers. “There's a lot of value in having an appellate practice” embedded with a trial team, he said. During Blatt's 10-year tenure at the firm, the practice won seven Supreme Court cases.

In a statement, Arnold & Porter chair Richard Alexander said, “John is a highly respected appellate and Supreme Court advocate whom clients trust to handle their most challenging and complex issues. His extensive experience, coupled with his record of leadership, makes him the ideal person to lead our top-tier appellate team.”

Apart from his Supreme Court arguments and his tweets, Elwood's visibility includes his intensely obscure “Relist Watch” feature that he writes for SCOTUSblog. He tracks when the court “relists” a pending petition for consideration at its next private conference, an action that can signal when and whether the case will be granted certiorari.

To make the feature lively, Elwood sprinkles throughout the report what he recently described as “especially funny jokes, dank memes and hilarious GIFs. In fact, they are so good that there's a danger that, if people could just read everything, unrestrained mirth would disrupt the workplace.”

That, plus a now-defunct annual review of the court's actions that he used to write for Green Bag, has earned Elwood the title of “The Dave Barry of Supreme Court humor.” In a prescient review of the 2011 term of the court, Elwood wrote, referring to Justice Clarence Thomas' concurrence in the Second Amendment case McDonald v. Chicago: “Justice Thomas seized the opportunity to advocate overruling the Slaughterhouse Cases and United States v. Cruikshank —the last two empty spaces on his 'Overrule 'em All!' punchcard. Having finally completed the set, he won a toaster.”

Elwood said on Friday the Dave Barry moniker still works. “There's a pretty small field of Supreme Court humorists. A little bit of humor makes the medicine go down better.”

Until recently, Elwood was also active at the University of Virginia School of Law Supreme Court litigation clinic. But since his wife, Courtney Elwood, became general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency in June 2017, it has been difficult for him to travel frequently to Charlottesville.

“There is a requirement, under the ABA rules, that you can only do so many things long distance. And as long as my wife is at the CIA, it kind of impairs my ability to go down and do the lessons,” he said.

At Vinson & Elkins, Elwood displayed some of his collection of Gibson guitars and would occasionally take one down to play, to relieve stress. He said he won't likely bring his guitars to Arnold & Porter, however. “The interior walls are glass, so they may have inferior soundproofing,” he said.

But Elwood was pleased to learn that several of his new colleagues at Arnold & Porter play musical instruments. “Stanton Jones plays both guitar and mandolin, just like I do,” Elwood said, “There's a trumpeter and a cellist, too. They'll show me up as a hack, but I'm planning on getting a fake arm cast so no one ever expects me to play.”

Read more:

Talking SCOTUS With Kannon Shanmugam. What to Watch as Term Wraps Up

A Mayer Brown Supreme Court Duo Leaps to McDermott

Blatt Rejoins Williams & Connolly, This Time as Supreme Court Practice Head

Shanmugam Exits Williams & Connolly to Launch Paul Weiss Appeals Practice

About That Furniture CIA Lawyer Courtney Elwood Retained From Kellogg Hansen