Appellate lawyers cannot help but experience an extra degree of excitement when an appeal on which they are working presents a question of first impression. All cases may be unique in some respect, but a true case of first impression appears infrequently. My favorite subcategory of first impression cases involves a federal question that other appellate courts have divided over, in which the issue has not yet been addressed or resolved by the court where the appeal is pending. And the best type of first impression case involves an issue that is deserving of U.S. Supreme Court review perhaps in the very case on which I am working.
I have been fortunate to work on two cases in which the U.S. Supreme Court has granted review on the merits and to sit second chair at counsel table two times in that most grand chamber of a courtroom. But it would be a wonderful experience to return once again, to deliver my first oral argument to the nine justices. That possibility is certainly among the reasons why working on a truly certiorari-worthy case of first impression tends to be so much fun.
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