By Scott Dorfman '07
Executive Editor

Thomas Goldstein, a veteran Supreme Court litigator, professor, and proprietor of the “SCOTUSblog,” engaged a group of 30 students in a question and answer session sponsored by the American Constitution Society last Thursday in Slaughter Hall.

Goldstein, who heads the Supreme Court practice at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in Washington D.C., has argued 16 cases before the Court, winning his last four. He is perhaps best known for having served as second-chair for Al Gore in the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court case. He also teaches Supreme Court litigation clinics at Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School.

Rather than speaking about a specific issue, Goldstein began his talk by asking the crowd what they wanted to hear about.

“We could talk about the Supreme Court, which I know something about, or we could talk about Texas Hold ‘em, which I know a little more about,” Goldstein said.

Goldstein responded to a student request to speak about the practice of appellate litigation, and how to get into the practice.

“Most of the people who do what I do went to Harvard, Stanford or Yale, or other great schools like UVA, and then did clerkships after law school,” Goldstein said. “I didn’t do that. I graduated from American University and got my clerkship because [National Public Radio Legal Affairs Correspondent] Nina Totenberg was kind of a mother to me in law school, and was able to help.”

Goldstein also encouraged students to get appellate experience working for the government if possible, because opportunities for appellate work can be scarce at law firms.

“All of this is driven by economics—all these firms need to keep the lights on,” Goldstein said. “And the way they do this is not from fancy-pants appellate litigation, but from trial litigation.”

Goldstein began his career as an appellate litigator with Jones Day. He entered his practice with a specific idea about how to get to the Supreme Court.

“I decided to go out and find pro bono cases that had a chance to get to the Supreme Court,” Goldstein said. “You get your very best experience as a very young lawyer through pro bono work. If you get involved in pro bono work, you are the person with experience, because you are the one who went out and got the case.”

By the year 2000, Goldstein had established a successful appellate practice and was sought out by David Boies to second-chair the Bush v. Gore case.

“I don’t take complete blame for [the loss], and there are lots of sad and funny stories about what happened,” Goldstein said. “We did the briefs at the Watergate Hotel, which was an ironic place for the Democrats to do this. . . . During the brief writing, I got a phone call from someone claiming to be Al Gore. I laughed for a half-second before realizing that it was him, and I was laughing in the face of the guy I was claiming was the president.”

Goldstein said he is perhaps best known for co-founding the SCOTUSblog, one of the widest read blogs on the Court.

“On big decision days, we get 92,000 hits on the site,” Goldstein said. “I pay a reporter, and probably invest $40,000 to $50,000 a year on the site.”

Goldstein ended by describing the makeup of the Court itself and giving some insights on the justices. He noted that the Court today hears half as many cases as it did twenty years ago.

“The Supreme Court’s docket has shrunk over the years because they don’t like to come back after lunch,” Goldstein said. “Most of the justices are quite old. With Roberts and Alito now, the average age of a Supreme Court justice has shrunk, but only to 114 years old.”

Goldstein observed that the court has undergone a large shift to the right over the past 20 years, leaving Justice Anthony Kennedy in the middle, whereas he would have been seen as very conservative in the 1980s.

“The Supreme Court can be described this way—it’s Justice Kennedy’s world, and you just live in it,” Goldstein said. “He gets to do what [Sandra Day] O’Connor used to do, and I think he really kind of likes it.”