Sometimes at the U.S. Supreme Court, big cases come in small packages. Scott Gant of Boies Schiller Flexner saw a potentially major separation-of-powers issue in an unhappy property owner's court case, and the justices on Monday agreed to review it.

The question for the high court in Patchak v. Zinke is whether Congress violated the separation of powers when it enacted a statute—the Gun Lake Act—that directed any pending court case related to a certain property “shall be promptly dismissed” without amending the substantive underlying law. David Patchak of Michigan had just such a case pending.

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“I'm excited as a first-time arguer to be in front of the court at all, but it's particularly exciting to have a case of such potential importance,” Gant said. “The separation of powers is a bedrock principle that is critically important to the way our government is run and to the well-being of our citizens. I was gratified the court agreed with our view that the case was important enough to review.”