The small elite group of lawyers who have the ear of the Supreme Court.
Echo Chamber - The handful of lawyers who dominate the docket at Supreme Ct.
A Reuters Investigation:
At Americas court of last resort, a handful of lawyers now dominates the docket
Part 1: A cadre of well-connected attorneys has honed the art of getting the Supreme Court to take up cases - and business is capitalizing on their expertise
WASHINGTON The marble façade of the U.S. Supreme Court building proclaims a high ideal: Equal Justice Under Law.
But inside, an elite cadre of lawyers has emerged as first among equals, giving their clients a disproportionate chance to influence the law of the land.
A Reuters examination of nine years of cases shows that 66 of the 17,000 lawyers who petitioned the Supreme Court succeeded at getting their clients appeals heard at a remarkable rate. Their appeals were at least six times more likely to be accepted by the court than were all others filed by private lawyers during that period.
The lawyers are the most influential members of one of the most powerful specialties in America: the business of practicing before the Supreme Court. None of these lawyers is a household name. But many are familiar to the nine justices. Thats because about half worked for justices past or present, and some socialize with them.
They are the elite of the elite: Although they account for far less than 1 percent of lawyers who filed appeals to the Supreme Court, these attorneys were involved in 43 percent of the cases the high court chose to decide from 2004 through 2012.
http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/scotus/
KT2000
(20,584 posts)shot to hell. It's who you know.