Tom Goldstein - Supreme Court Practice

Supreme Court Practice

Over the past fifteen years, Goldstein has served as one of the lawyers for one of the parties in just under 10% of the cases argued before the Supreme Court. Goldstein has argued 28 cases himself.

Notably, Goldstein served as second chair for Laurence Tribe and David Boies on behalf of Vice President Al Gore in Bush v. Gore. He also served as second chair for Laurence Tribe on New York Times Co. v. Tasini (decided in 2001).

"The Hustler," an April 2006 article by Noam Scheiber in The New Republic, asserts that Goldstein has had an out-sized impact on the Supreme Court - going so far as to suggest the Court was the "Goldstein Court", a phraseology usually reserved for the Chief Justice of the United States during a particular period (e.g. "Roberts Court", "Rehnquist Court", "Taft Court") – but there is no empirical data to support that claim.

The article focuses on the practice pioneered by Goldstein of identifying and pursuing cases that are likely to be reviewed by the Supreme Court. At the time, the practice was extremely controversial and analogized to ambulance chasing by established members of the bar, including by now-Chief Justice John Roberts, who quipped about contacting the lawyers in cases that if you needed a heart-surgeon, you would not pick the one who called you out of the blue. The practice has since become commonplace among almost all law firm Supreme Court practices and the several Supreme Court litigation clinics in law schools.