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From WSJ blog
January 3, 2008, 9:19 am
D.C. Fires Attorney in Supreme Court Gun-Ban Case
Posted by Peter Lattman
Loyal Law Blog readers are hip to our mini-obsession with Supreme Court advocates (see, e.g., here and here). So we’re riveted this morning by the news that Peter Nickles, the acting AG of Washington D.C., has fired Alan Morrison, the D.C. lawyer who had been slated to argue the big time D.C. gun ban case before the Supremes this spring. Here are stories from the WaPo and Legal Times.
Morrison, who has argued 20 cases before the high court, had been hired by then-AG Linda Singer, who resigned two weeks ago. Morrison suggested to the WaPo that he was fired as part of a feud between Nickles and Singer.
D.C.’s 15,000-word brief is scheduled to be filed with the Supremes tomorrow, reports the WaPo, and Morrison had already been practicing for oral argument. AG Nickles said yesterday that a team of lawyers helping with the case — including iPhone expert Tom Goldstein of Akin Gump and Walter Dellinger of O’Melveny (and Duke Law) — would remain on board. Nickles, who used to work at Covington, also hinted that he might employ the services of his former colleague Robert Long.
“The brief we are submitting is a fabulous brief, a winning brief by a great team,” Nickles told the WaPo. “We will not miss a step. . . . Alan is a very good lawyer, but I decided to move in a different direction. It’s not as if one person is indispensable.”
David Vladeck, a Georgetown Law professor and the brother of the suddenly ubiquitous NY employment lawyer Anne Vladeck, begs to differ. “This is a case that requires an unusual amount of preparation because one of the issues comes back to, ‘What did those folks who wrote the Bill of Rights really mean when they wrote the Second Amendment?’ ” Vladeck, a friend of Morrison, told the WaPo. “In addition to needing a good lawyer and appellate advocate, you need someone who has immersed himself in very complex historical sources. Alan has been doing that for two or three months by now. Whoever takes over this case will start many, many, many laps behind where we ought to be.”
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January 3, 2008, 9:19 am
D.C. Fires Attorney in Supreme Court Gun-Ban Case
Posted by Peter Lattman
Loyal Law Blog readers are hip to our mini-obsession with Supreme Court advocates (see, e.g., here and here). So we’re riveted this morning by the news that Peter Nickles, the acting AG of Washington D.C., has fired Alan Morrison, the D.C. lawyer who had been slated to argue the big time D.C. gun ban case before the Supremes this spring. Here are stories from the WaPo and Legal Times.
Morrison, who has argued 20 cases before the high court, had been hired by then-AG Linda Singer, who resigned two weeks ago. Morrison suggested to the WaPo that he was fired as part of a feud between Nickles and Singer.
D.C.’s 15,000-word brief is scheduled to be filed with the Supremes tomorrow, reports the WaPo, and Morrison had already been practicing for oral argument. AG Nickles said yesterday that a team of lawyers helping with the case — including iPhone expert Tom Goldstein of Akin Gump and Walter Dellinger of O’Melveny (and Duke Law) — would remain on board. Nickles, who used to work at Covington, also hinted that he might employ the services of his former colleague Robert Long.
“The brief we are submitting is a fabulous brief, a winning brief by a great team,” Nickles told the WaPo. “We will not miss a step. . . . Alan is a very good lawyer, but I decided to move in a different direction. It’s not as if one person is indispensable.”
David Vladeck, a Georgetown Law professor and the brother of the suddenly ubiquitous NY employment lawyer Anne Vladeck, begs to differ. “This is a case that requires an unusual amount of preparation because one of the issues comes back to, ‘What did those folks who wrote the Bill of Rights really mean when they wrote the Second Amendment?’ ” Vladeck, a friend of Morrison, told the WaPo. “In addition to needing a good lawyer and appellate advocate, you need someone who has immersed himself in very complex historical sources. Alan has been doing that for two or three months by now. Whoever takes over this case will start many, many, many laps behind where we ought to be.”
Permalink | Trackback URL: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2008/01/03/dc-fires-attorney-in-supreme-courts-gun-ban-case/trackback/
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Read more: Supreme Court
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