Supreme Court Humor Update: Four Lawyers Get More Laughs Than Alito, Ginsburg, Thomas in November Sitting

Well, the November sitting of the Supreme Court has ended, and that means it's time to update the Supreme Court oral argument humor standings.  When last we looked at the data, Justice Scalia had jumped out to a substantial lead over Justices Roberts and Breyer.  He's solidified that lead with an impressive follow-up performance in November, but before we get to that, I think it's worth singling out the Supreme Court advocates who were able to get a laugh from the gallery this sitting.  Four different lawyers performed this feat--something that Justices Alito, Ginsburg, and Thomas were unable to do, despite being present for all of the Court's November arguments.  Getting a laugh as a lawyer at the Court is no easy task.  These people are focused like crazy on the law, facing the most intimidating bench in the nation, and talking about profoundly unfunny things, so to be able to throw off a quip that actually makes people laugh is pretty impressive.

Two of the four jokers this time around were representatives of the Justice Department--Gregory Katsas, the Assistant AG for the Civil Division, who got a laugh in Negusie v. Mukasey  by pointing out that an "extreme position" that Justice Scalia had just mocked was luckily not the one he was advancing before the Court.  Solicitor General Gregory Garre (so many Gregories!) got a laugh in the fuck and shit case by referring to the machine that bleeps out dirty words on television as a "bleeping machine." Unwilling to be outjoked by the government, Sidley & Austin super-Supreme Court-lawyer Carter Phillips also got a joke in that case, although it would require several law review article-length posts to explain why what he said about the Administrative Procedure Act was even arguably funny.

Finally, Stanford Law School's Jeffrey Fisher got a laugh in the Confrontation Clause case of Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts.  Assigning this laugh to Fisher instead of Chief Justice Roberts is, admittedly, controversial.  If you look at page 23 of the transcript, the "(laughter)" notation comes directly after Fisher's statement, but it's unclear whether the laughter was really instigated by Justice Roberts' question.  The reason I'm giving this laugh to Fisher instead of Roberts is because Fisher is a friend of mine and I really like him and he deserves it.   

Before Fisher became a big-time famous Supreme Court litigator (first at Davis Wright Tremaine in Seattle and now at Stanford Law School) who has basically convinced the Court to rewrite a variety of areas of criminal law, all for the better, he was--just like me--a summer associate splitting his summer between Williams & Connolly and Jenner & Block's DC office during the summer of 1996.  If it was not clear already that Fisher was going to turn out to be way more successful than me from the fact that he is twice as tall, five times as good looking, and fifteen times more athletic than me, then that summer made it undeniable.  I'm not exactly sure of this, but I think Fisher was actually made partner at W&C during that summer.  I, on the other hand, was invited and then disinvited to a Fourth of July barbecue at a partner's house, and then mocked incessantly for allegedly bringing a worker's comp claim against the firm for my carpal tunnel syndrome (this was not actually true, though I did go to the ER for the wrist problem).  Then at Jenner, I spent all my time writing memos to low level state bureaucrats regarding the authority of banks to sell alternative financial instruments while Fisher, I swear to God, developed an actual Supreme Court practice in six and a half weeks.

The thing about Fisher, though, is that he's one of those rare people who is not only ridiculously smart and sucessful, but also happens to be a terrific, kind, funny, and all around great guy.  In a profession where there are a lot of successful people out there to hate and envy, it's good to know that some people truly deserve their fame and success.  Fisher's one of them.  Plus, I think his hair might be slightly thinning, so that's pretty sweet.

Oh yeah, the Supreme Court humor update.  Here are the running totals, with November's results in parentheses: 

Scalia 25 (11)

Roberts 15 (6)

Breyer 10 (4)

Souter 7 (4)

Kennedy 5 (2)

Stevens 3 (2)

Alito 2 (0)

Ginsburg 0 (0)

Thomas 0 (0) 

Comments

[Buddy]

Good stuff. Thanks