Demonstrations outside the U.S. Supreme Court on the day of arguments in the workplace discrimination cases involving gay workers, on Tuesday, October 8, 2019. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM)

Thirty-two plaintiffs lawyers, academics, state and federal judges, civil rights advocates and others, but none from Big Law, should be considered by Democratic presidential contenders for any new opening on the U.S. Supreme Court, the progressive group Demand Justice said Tuesday in pitching a list of would-be justices.

Demand Justice had said it was preparing a list of Supreme Court shortlisters, in part to spur a broader dialogue among Democratic presidential hopefuls about the high court. Then-candidate Donald Trump posted two Supreme Court candidate lists, picking primarily from prominent conservative state and federal appeals judges. Republicans widely praised Trump for his lists.

The progressive group's Supreme Court shortlist, which is not affiliated with any one Democratic candidate, includes household names in litigation, judiciary and academic circles. There are no current Big Law partners, by design, on the list.

"None of the lawyers on our list are corporate lawyers, in keeping with our call for the next president to avoid nominating any more lawyers who have been partners at corporate law firms or in-house counsel at large corporations," Demand Justice said in a statement. "Instead, our list boasts a wide range of former public defenders, public interest lawyers, academics, and plaintiff's lawyers."

Demand Justice took some criticism recently for its proposal that any next Democratic president shun nominating a current or former Big Law partner. That proposal, according to critics, "will likely exclude many first-generation black and Latino attorneys from the federal bench." The critics argued that a stint in Big Law is not an uncommon move by many young lawyers to alleviate the pressures of crushing law school debt.

The list does not include several Obama-era Supreme Court contenders, including Chief Judge Merrick Garland of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, whose nomination to the high court was blocked by Republicans, and Judge Sri Srinivasan of the D.C. Circuit. Garland, a former Clinton-era Justice Department leader, had worked at the law firm Arnold & Porter; and Srinivasan is a former O'Melveny & Myers partner.

Goodwin Liu. April 16, 2010. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM)

>> The Demand Justice list includes three California Supreme Court justices: Leondra Kruger; Goodwin Liu and Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar. Liu had been an Obama-era nominee for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit but was blocked by Senate Republicans. Anita Earls, a North Carolina Supreme Court justice, was also picked.

>> Law professor Pamela Karlan of Stanford; Timothy Wu of Columbia; James Forman Jr. of Yale; and Zephyr Teachout of Fordham were among the academics picked as shortlisters. Other professors included M. Elizabeth Magill of Virginia and NYU's Bryan Stevenson and Melissa Murray.

>> Two current federal appeals court judges—Cornelia Pillard of the D.C. Circuit and Jane Kelly of the Eighth Circuit—were on the list. Two federal trial judges, Carlton Reeves of the Southern District of Mississippi, and Richard Boulware of Nevada, were named as shortlisters.

>> The list includes prominent voices in the labor and employment world: Sharon Block, a former Obama-era National Labor Relations Board member, and Jenny Yang, who served as chairwoman of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission during the Obama administration.

>> The litigators on the list include Deepak Gupta of the Washington boutique Gupta Wessler. Gupta's widely recognized for his pro-consumer advocacy. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and the Philadelphia district attorney, Lawrence Krasner, were also included.

>> Civil rights leaders named to the shortlist included: Sherrilyn Ifill, president and director-counsel of NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund; Dale Ho of the ACLU Voting Rights Project; and Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund was on the list, with Nina Perales, vice president of litigation at MALDEF.

Rep. Katie Porter, D-California, at a House Financial Services hearing Wednesday in Washington. (Photo: Diego M. Radzinschi / ALM)

>> One sitting U.S. representative—Katie Porter of California—was picked for the shortlist. Porter, a law professor, has gained notoriety for how she has questioned bank and financial executives at congressional hearings.

The next Democratic presidential debate is set for Tuesday night in Ohio, where 12 candidates will face off. None of the leading Democratic candidates has issued any sort of list similar to the one Trump first published in 2016.

Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of Judicial Crisis Network, on Tuesday called the Demand Justice list "a dream come true for far left activists."

Law professor and Supreme Court scholar Josh Blackman writes about the Demand Justice roster: "I welcome these lists. They provide the public with insights into the type of jurists an administration would consider. Though, it's difficult to know how much weight to put on Demand Justice's roster. Unlike President Trump's original list, the current list was not released–or even endorsed–by any campaigns."

 

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