During the winter term, 10 Harvard Law students participated in the school’s Supreme Court Litigation Clinic, led by Lecturers Thomas Goldstein, Amy Howe, and Kevin Russell—all of whom are leading Supreme Court practitioners and experts on appellate litigation. The clinic gave students the opportunity to spend the month of January in Washington, D.C., working on actual cases that would be heard before the Court.
Students were assigned to teams, each working closely with an instructor to write and file a petition for certiorari, brief in opposition to certiorari, merits brief, amicus brief, and to prepare for oral argument in a pending case. In addition, students attended arguments at the Court, participated in moot courts, and met with leading members of the Supreme Court bar, former Supreme Court clerks, and members of the Supreme Court press corps.
As part of the clinic, students selected an upcoming case and were assigned to write three posts for SCOTUSblog: an argument preview, an argument recap, and an opinion recap. The student writing is also compiled into the corresponding SCOTUSwiki page for the related cases. SCOTUSblog is the leading online site for information and analysis relating to the high court’s caseload and rulings.
Goldstein publishes SCOTUSblog and is a partner at Akin Gump, where he is the presiding co-chair of the firm wide Litigation Management Committee and also co-chair of the Supreme Court practice. Howe is the editor of SCOTUSblog and is a partner at Howe & Russell. Russell is also attorney at Howe & Russell, and contributes content to the SCOTUSblog on a variety of issues, including civil rights cases.
The students who participated in the clinic are:
Luke Appling ’10
James Bickford ’10
Joshua Branson ’10
Dina Guzovsky ’11
Jesenka Mrdjenovic ’10
Kathryn Nielson ’10
Leif Overvold ’10
United States v. O’Brien and Burgess
Jay Rapaport ’11
Ray Seilie ’10
Katherine Wevers LL.M. ’10
—Jenny Lackey