He took a cab to First Street and walked to the Georgetown Law campus. A small fleet of black Cadillacs were parked along First, which Sean assumed was the security detail for the Supreme Court justices attending the event. A clock tower stood under a cloudless April sky, cutting a narrow shadow over the only patch of grass on the urban campus.
“Sean,” Cecilia Lowenstein called to him in her husky voice. She gave him a cheek-to-cheek kiss. He’d once told her that he hated the faux European greeting, but that only encouraged Cecilia. Sean scanned the queue at the entrance of the Hotung International building. The line was filled with Washington’s upper echelon: the Supreme Court Bar. A group of insufferable blowhards. Intellectual elitists. Terrible dressers. His people.
“Well, if it isn’t the ‘modest superstar’ I’ve read so much about,” Cecilia said, flapping a copy of the Washington Post.
Sean frowned and shook his head. “Let’s not…”
“You’re no fun.” Cecilia adjusted her skirt and wobbled slightly in heels that seemed taller than she could handle. “So how’s your first day in private practice? Realized how much it sucks yet?”
“They’re still just showing me where the restrooms are and how to turn on my computer, so I haven’t had to deal with billable hours yet.”
“Ugh, don’t get me started about billables. We were spoiled at OSG.” Cecilia, like most of the Supreme Court community, spoke in abbreviations and acronyms. It wasn’t the Office of the Solicitor General, it was OSG. It wasn’t Justice Robert Reeves Anderson, it was RRA. A case wasn’t dismissed as improvidently granted, it was DIG-ed. There was the GVR (granted, vacated, and remanded) and the CVSG (the court calling for the views of the solicitor general), and the list went on. An ivory tower version of annoying teenage text-speak.
Cecilia scrutinized the line ahead of them. “Most of these schmucks charge a thousand bucks an hour for lower court appeals, but will take the Supreme Court cases for free just so they can get oral arguments. With the justices hearing fewer and fewer cases every term, times are tough, my friend. And your law firm’s gonna be so starstruck the first year that they won’t give you grief that you’re not pulling in much money, but that’ll change.”
Sean had heard this a million times from Cecilia, who’d left OSG two years ago to head the appellate group at Beacher & Bishop. She was right that getting Supreme Court cases in private practice wasn’t easy. At OSG, they were part of a small band of elite government lawyers whose sole job was to represent the United States government in cases before the Supreme Court. The office was so influential with the nine justices that the solicitor general often was called “The Tenth Justice.” They didn’t have to go out and hustle for work; the cases came to them. The court accepted only about seventy out of seven thousand petitions requesting review each term, so in private practice the competition for a piece of that 1 percent was fierce. It was an open secret that when the court granted certiorari in a case, even the most prominent Supreme Court lawyers would engage in the distasteful practice of cold calling or e-mailing the parties offering to take the case for free. Still, it gave Sean solace that despite her gloom and doom, Cecilia already had racked up seven arguments while in private practice.
“Thanks for the pep talk,” Sean said wearily. “I can always count on you, Cel.”
“So, you really don’t want to talk about this?” Cecilia flapped the newspaper again.
Sean rolled his eyes.
“You know I hate modesty,” Cecilia said.
“I’m hardly being modest. We all know who’s getting the nomination.” Sean’s gaze cut to Senator Mason James, who was at the front of the line.
Cecilia wrinkled her nose. “Maybe you’re right. Those dumb shits on the Hill are determined to get one of their own on the court—even if it means a schemer like James. But clients will still be impressed, so you should take advantage of the attention.” All nine of the current justices had been federal judges at the time of their appointment, something a block of senators had criticized as a departure from history that left the court too detached from the policy implications of its decisions. Senator James, the former attorney general of Virginia and a brilliant legal mind, offered the best of all worlds, they said. But Sean considered James as nothing more than a politician.
At the entrance, the dean of the law school and Professor Jonathan Tweed greeted guests.
Cecilia scowled at the sight of Professor Tweed. “Your buddy seems to be relishing the attention as usual.”
“Can you be nice today?”
Cecilia didn’t respond. When they reached the receiving line, she skipped by Tweed and greeted the dean with a hug.
Tweed gripped Sean’s hand. “I see some things never change,” Tweed said, shooting a glance at Cecilia.
Sean shrugged.
“No wait, I take that back,” Tweed said. “Things do change. I thought you’d never sell out and join the private sector.”
“Maybe if law schools didn’t pay professors so much, we parents wouldn’t have to change jobs to afford the tuition.”