Top Supreme Court Advocates of the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

This article identifies the Supreme Court litigators who have argued at least five times since October 2000, making them — by some measures — "expert Supreme Court litigators." It identifies all members of this elite tier and then breaks them down by demographics such as gender, ethnicity, law school, past clerkships, and experience in the Office of the Solicitor General.

Identifying the members of today's elite Supreme Court bar reveals several interesting trends. The members skew overwhelmingly white, although there are several young, minority members of the Supreme Court bar who have the potential to argue many cases in the near future. The elite bar also contains more men than women, but, like with minorities, several women in recent years have taken positions that place them before the Supreme Court with increasing frequency. Predictably, top law schools are the best represented, although their presence may be smaller than some suspect. The best predictor of a law school's presence in the elite Supreme Court bar is it's Supreme Court clerkship potential, not it's U.S. News & World Report ranking — although those two measures closely track one another.

Keywords: Supreme Court, Supreme Court Bar, Litigators, Statistics