With the U.S. Supreme Court accepting 75 or fewer cases for review each term, competition is fierce among law firms and law school clinics for the chance to write briefs on the merits and appear before the justices.

How did the University of California at Los Angeles School of Law Supreme Court Clinic, a relative newcomer to the field, get to participate in four cases the court has granted this term? (Founded in 2013, the clinic had not had any cases granted until this term.)

Stuart Banner, the professor who heads up the clinic, thinks it is partly because “we got lucky and got good cases” to bring before the court for this term. But the other secret ingredient, he acknowledges, may be the one of clinic's policies: “We tend not to take over cases.”