Amy Howe

Oct 28 2016

Look at where we are . . . look at where we started

And by “started,” I mean as recently as last term, when it was February before the justices heard oral arguments from a female attorney who was not a lawyer for either the federal government or a state government. As I reported last month, the October Term 2016 got off to a much better start, with eight women – three of whom are in private practice – appearing before the court in the October sitting. The November hearing list, released today, reveals that one of those three women, former Stanford Law School dean and current law firm name partner Kathleen Sullivan, will be back again this month, arguing on behalf of State Farm in a False Claims Act case.

Sullivan will be joined in the November sitting by four other women, two of whom are from private practice: Catherine Stetson and Catherine M.A. Carroll will face off in a dispute between Venezuela and an oil-drilling company over the pleading standard for cases brought under the “expropriation exception” to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s general bar on lawsuits against foreign nations in U.S. courts. Stetson and Carroll will be joined at the lectern by Elaine Goldenberg, an assistant to the U.S. solicitor general. And another assistant, Ann O’Connell, will argue on behalf of the federal government in a case involving jurisdiction and the Federal National Mortgage Association, popularly known as “Fannie Mae.”

Former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal wins the “Ironman” award for the sitting with two arguments over an eight-day span. In the first of those arguments, on October 31, Katyal also finds himself in perhaps the most unenviable position of the sitting: opposing Wonder the goldendoodle service dog.

Amy L Howe
Until September 2016, Amy served as the editor and reporter for SCOTUSblog, a blog devoted to coverage of the Supreme Court of the United States; she continues to serve as an independent contractor and reporter for SCOTUSblog. Before turning to full-time blogging, she served as counsel in over two dozen merits cases at the Supreme Court and argued two cases there. From 2004 until 2011, she co-taught Supreme Court litigation at Stanford Law School; from 2005 until 2013, she co-taught a similar class at Harvard Law School. She has also served as an adjunct professor at American University’s Washington College of Law and Vanderbilt Law School. Amy is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and holds a master’s degree in Arab Studies and a law degree from Georgetown University.
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