Neal Katyal, partner with Hogan Lovells in Washington, D.C. Oct. 30, 2017. Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM

For former acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal, elevating the next crop of Supreme Court advocates at Hogan Lovells starts with getting them deeply involved in high court matters early in their firm careers.

Hogan Lovells scored two U.S. Supreme Court victories in cases argued by Katyal in the court's last term: McDonough v. Smith, a case about when government officials can be sued for fabricating criminal evidence, and Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission v. American Humanist Association, the so-called “peace cross” case regarding a World War I memorial in the shape of a Christian cross on public land in Maryland.

As co-leader of his firm's appellate practice, Katyal is quick to praise his younger Hogan Lovells colleagues in those cases, including newly promoted partner Colleen Roh Sinzdak and senior associates Mitchell Reich, Thomas Schmidt and Katie Wellington.

Katyal called the four “crazy credentialed” and diverse, citing their varied politics, gender, orientations, “and just the experience that they've had.”

Colleen Roh Sinzdak, Hogan Lovells

Still, all four attorneys attended Harvard Law School or Yale Law School and all were Supreme Court clerks. Reich clerked for Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, Schmidt clerked for Justice Stephen Breyer, and Sinzdak and Wellington both clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. Wellington also clerked for then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

“It's like having Supreme Court justices on call,” Sinzdak said of the group's expertise. “You can always call Tom, call Mitch, call Katie, and say, like, 'I have this knotty question, can you help me?' and you're dealing with these brilliant people.”

Katyal said he looked for Supreme Court clerks with high emotional intelligence. The firm, he said, sought to empower a younger lawyer in each of the cases it has moving to the Supreme Court, including next term, when Reich is set to deliver his first-ever Supreme Court argument in Rodriguez v. Federal Deposit Insurance.

Mitchell Reich, Hogan Lovells

“I didn't have this [view] before I was in the solicitor general's office,” Katyal said. “I generally had this view that a group of people will yield a better product … but I actually have come to the view that you give a young associate like these folks who have all of the challenge and brain power and diligence and you say, “You're running this thing,” and by concentrating responsibility it really yields not just a better product but it also is the best way to train someone.”

Katyal “really wants to help folks get their foot in the door,” Reich said in an interview. “Neal has been incredible about putting junior folks forward to do these arguments. He helped me argue part of the [Trump administration] travel ban in the Ninth Circuit.”

Knowledge of the Supreme Court's inner-workings is critical to informing Hogan Lovells' approach to individual cases. Not content to aim for a 5-4 majority along ideological lines at the high court, Reich said the team deliberately targeted the court's liberal bloc in the Maryland peace cross case to ensure a large majority in support of their argument.

“Neal clerked for Justice Breyer, I clerked for Justice Kagan, and so we know their jurisprudence really well, and we thought that this was a case where we could actually get two of the more liberal-leaning justices to side with a majority of the court in upholding a cross like this,” Reich said. “From the beginning that was our strategy: These are justices who care a lot about not disturbing long-standing traditions and monuments that have been around for a long time.”

Katie Wellington, Hogan Lovells

In the end, the court voted 7-2, with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sotomayor dissenting.

The competition to hire former clerks is extraordinary. Jones Day, for example, routinely strives to hire them in large numbers, and in 2015 the firm recruited 10 of the 39 clerks working for the justices in the previous term.

Supreme Court rules forbid former clerks from participating in cases before the court for two years after their employment there ends. But that hasn't dampened the market for them. The Big Law hiring bonus for clerks reached $400,000 last year and is climbing higher year after year.

At Hogan Lovells, young former clerks are playing key roles in the firm's cases both before the justices and behind the scenes. When the Supreme Court grants a case, advocates have the opportunity to meet with the U.S. solicitor general's office and urge the government to back their client's position, or at least avoid siding against them. Schmidt met with the SG's office in the McDonough case, and the government subsequently elected to argue for his side as amicus curiae.

Sinzdak, who made partner earlier this year, argued before the Supreme Court in Fort Bend County, Texas v. Davis soon after her promotion. The court rejected Hogan Lovells' position, but Sinzdak said it was a “pretty special” experience that was an example of what set the firm apart from others.

It comes back to Katyal's conviction that placing real responsibility on a new generation of Supreme Court lawyers is the right approach for clients, the firm and the bar—and that turning to associates for legal research isn't enough.

“It's interacting with the amicus, interacting with the clients, running the moots, asking the hard questions, all of that,” he said.

Read More

Who Gets the Golden Ticket? SCOTUS Clerks and Diversity

$400K for SCOTUS Clerks: A Bonus Too Far?

How Jones Day Cornered the Market on SCOTUS Clerks

 

---

Marcia Coyle contributed reporting from Washington.