Welcome to the homestretch of the 2018-19 Supreme Court term! The justices have 24 cases remaining and they won't be back on the bench until Monday. Fasten your seatbelts; it's likely to be a fast and bumpy ride. This morning we hear from a high court first-timer for insights on his unanimous victory in a Title VII case. We also go down memory lane for a look at the drama surrounding final weeks of the Roberts Court. Feedback and tips are welcome: Contact us at [email protected] and [email protected], and follow us on Twitter at @Tonymauro and @MarciaCoyle. Thanks for reading!

Dramatic Endings: Summer at SCOTUS

In the final three weeks of Chief Justice John Roberts Jr.'s first term, then-law professor Neal Katyal started attending every decision day in anticipation of a ruling in his first Supreme Court case—Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a challenge to the military tribunal system for Guantanamo Bay detainees.

“Finally, on June 28, the court announced the final day of the term would be the next day, and so we knew the decision would come down,” Katyal, now a Hogan Lovells partner, recalled. “The oral argument had gone well, but we knew the odds were stacked against us. We went in to Court that morning, quite nervous. And then the chief justice said 'Justice Stevens has the opinion in No. 05-184, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld.' And we knew.”

Katyal (at left) barely had time to skim the 5-3, 200-plus-page decision before facing a media crush outside. “I had written some notes down on the metro ride in that morning, and said that what the decision was about was the rule of law—that in American even a guy who is accused of being the lowest of the low can sue the most powerful man in the nation, bring his case all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, and win,” he said. “That, I said, was something truly great about America.”

Whether it's the final day or the final week, the term endings of the Roberts Court have been almost without fail marked by drama and blockbuster decisions.

For those present, it's difficult to forget the rare show of deep anger on the bench by a dissenting Justice Stephen Breyer in the 2007 school diversity decision, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District #1. Or in 2015, the quiet jubilation in the court's bar section of lawyers who fought same-sex marriage bans culminating in Obergefell v. Hodges.

In recent remarks at the Second Circuit conference, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburgsaid the April argument calendar was “the most crowded sitting” of the term. “We try to front load, with a heavy calendar in October, and a lighter one in April. This term, the opposite occurred, but not because we planned it that way,” she said.

The hope was that a lighter April would mean more time in particular in May and June for opinion writing. Still, whether a case is argued in April or October, drama and blockbusters mark the final day or week of the Roberts Court. And this term, with census and partisan gerrymander cases still pending, is likely to be no different.

How to Argue at SCOTUS for 1st Time, and Win

Amidst a U.S. Supreme Court bar full of veteran advocates, Raffi Melkonian stands out.

Until April Melkonian (above left), a partner at Wright Close & Barger in Houston, had never argued before the high court. He represented his client Lois Davis (above center, with Melkonian's law partner Russell Hollenbeck) in her Title VII case for five years—a background that some justices seem to frown on, preferring lawyers who know the court as much as the client. He won the case of Fort Bend County Texas v. Davison June 2, and the court was unanimous in his favor.

“He already knew the case forwards and backwards,” said Brian Fletcher, an instructor at the Stanford Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, whose faculty and students helped Melkonian prepare. “He spent the weeks before the argument mastering the relevant Supreme Court precedents, thinking deeply about the questions the justices might have, and crafting concise, persuasive responses.”

We asked Melkonian, who is also known as the dean of the #AppellateTwitter online community, to share his lessons learned with other new advocates from the perspective of a first-timer who won:

>> “Definitely, visit the Supreme Court for an oral argument before the big day. Attending an argument day helped make me more comfortable about the process, able to advise guests about how to navigate everything, and to fix the physical layout in my mind. One thing that surprised me was how cramped the seats for arguing counsel and counsel in the second case are. Believe it or not, that sort of thing might have thrown me off had I not spent a day in the court earlier in the week.”

>> “The experience of arguing in the Supreme Court is a little bit like preparing for the bar exam. Afterwards, you feel like you overprepared, but that's the only way to do it, in my view. The most important parts of my preparation were my moots in front of wonderful panels combined with my self-moots—practice sessions I had in front of video cameras where I asked myself dozens of questions I'd prepared over the weeks. The process of both thinking of the questions and of answering them was absolutely invaluable. David Frederick's magisterial book on oral argument preparation walks you through the method.”

>> “It's important, both for briefing and argument, to avail yourself of the advice of people who are experienced in Supreme Court advocacy. I was privileged to have in my case the Stanford clinic as co-counsel. There's a certain cadence to SCOTUS advocacy that is different than even a federal court of appeal. Don't assume that just because you are a seasoned appellate advocate, you automatically know what to do. I found the members of the Supreme Court bar exceedingly generous in helping a newbie prepare. I owe so many debts I cannot repay.”

>> “If you're a first timer like me, keep a diary! It may sound silly to someone who has argued or thinks they will argue many cases in the Supreme Court, but I envision being a very occasional player. In that context, it was important to be able to remember this very special experience, so I wrote down some impressions and thoughts almost every day. I've already found it of value, and no doubt will find it more valuable in years to come.”

Supreme Court Headlines: What We're Reading

• Big Law Supreme Court Veterans Land Five New Cases for Next Term. Three former U.S. solicitors general are involved in the granted cases, as well as some of the best-known advocates before the Supreme Court including Williams & Connolly partner Lisa Blatt, who has argued 37 cases before the court, more than any other woman. The grants are a snapshot of the preeminence of veteran practitioners in shaping the Supreme Court's docket. [NLJ]

• Trump's Lawyers Drag Justices Into DC Circuit Subpoena Fight. The president's team at Consovoy McCarthy opened their D.C. Circuit brief with a hypothetical congressional demand to inspect the financial records of Supreme Court justices. [NLJ]

• Princeton University Establishes Sonia Sotomayor 1976 Scholarship Fund. Among the top donors is U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Rogers is a Princeton graduate, class of 1987. “Justice Sotomayor not only exemplifies the mission of the University, but has helped recast it with her contribution to our informal motto, 'In the nation's service and the service of humanity,'” Princeton President Christopher Eisgruber said. “We hope that Sotomayor Scholars and every Princeton student will find inspiration in her example and seek out lives of service and excellence.” [Princeton University]

• Ginsburg Hints at Sharp Divides as Supreme Court Term Nears End. “Given the number of most-watched cases still unannounced, I cannot predict that the relatively low sharp divisions ratio will hold,” the 86-year-old justice said in New York at a conference for judges. [Bloomberg] The Washington Post has more here, and The New York Times reports here on Ginsburg's remarks.

• Can Kannon Shanmugam Make Paul Weiss 'The Best Little Law Firm' in Washington? Four months into his tenure as Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison's Washington, D.C., managing partner, Kannon Shanmugam said he's preoccupied with turning the office into a boutique within a behemoth. “I think my vision for the office is that I want Paul Weiss to be the best place to be a litigator in D.C.,” Shanmugam said. “I really want this to be the best little law firm in Washington.”[NLJ]

• Justice Breyer Says It's 'Past Time' To Confront Guantanamo's 'Difficult Questions'. ”The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal from a Yemeni prisoner held without charge at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for more than 17 years. But Justice Stephen Breyer, in a two-page “statement” called attention to the case, declaring that it is “past time” to examine the indefinite detention of prisoners there. 'In my judgment,” Breyer wrote, “it is past time to confront the difficult questions' left open.” [NPR]

• SCOTUS Mystery: Why Is the Gundy Decision Taking So Long? “The long delay in the court's decision-making has been a mystery and a cause for consternation among court-watchers who view the case as a crucial milestone in the effort to shrink the power of federal regulators and bureaucrats.” [NLJ]

• Fight Over Trump's Trade Tariffs Lands at the U.S. Supreme Court. “Later this month, the justices will take their first look at a petition in which the American Institute for International Steel and others contend that a provision in the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, used last year by President Donald Trump to impose “national security” steel and aluminum tariffs, is an unconstitutional delegation of Congress' power to the president. [NLJ]