How Has the Supreme Court Reshaped American Law?

Thomas Goldstein

Thursday, 18 Oct 2012 at 8:00 pm – Sun Room, Memorial Union

Attorney Thomas Goldstein has argued twenty-five cases before the Supreme Court, including matters involving federal patent law, class action practice, labor and employment, and disability law. Most recently he argued the strip search case: that county jail officials should use discretion in conducting strip searches on prisoners arrested for nonviolent offenses. Goldstein is also the founder and publisher of SCOTUSblog, which is devoted to coverage of the Supreme Court and is widely regarded as one of the nation's premier legal Internet sites. In 2006 he created the Supreme Court Practice at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld. He is currently with Goldstein & Russell and teaches Supreme Court litigation at both Stanford and Harvard Law Schools. Constitution Day Speaker and part of the National Affairs Series.

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http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-ap...-goldstein

Thomas Goldstein has been repeatedly recognized as a leading member of the bar. In 2010, The National Law Journal named him one of the 40 most influential lawyers of the decade. Legal Times named him one of the "90 Greatest Washington Lawyers of the Last 30 Years" and praised him for transforming the practice of law before the Supreme Court. He is also included in the National Law Journal's current list of the nation's 100 most influential lawyers. He has been repeatedly recognized as one of the nation's top appellate advocates. GQ Magazine named him one of the 50 most powerful people in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Goldstein is an elected Fellow of the American Academy of Appellate Lawyers. He is involved with a number of professional organizations. He serves as the vice chair of the Amicus Committee of the ABA's Intellectual Property Section and previously served for two years on the ABA's Standing Committee on Amicus Curiae Briefs. In those capacities, he has authored several Supreme Court amicus briefs for the ABA. In addition, Tom serves on the boards of advisors of the Washington Legal Foundation and the Georgetown University Supreme Court Institute.

Before founding Goldstein & Howe in 1999, he practiced law at Boies & Schiller, LLP and at Jones Day Reavis & Pogue. He left the firm he founded in 2006 to create the Supreme Court Practice at Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, where he also was a partner and principal co-chair of the firmwide litigation practice. He returned to what is now Goldstein & Russell in 2011. He clerked for the Honorable Patricia M. Wald of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Supreme Court Arguments
Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., April 16, 2011
Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders, October 12, 2011
Sorrell v. IMS Health Inc., April 26, 2011
Hamilton v. Lanning, June 7, 2010
Republic of Iraq v. Beaty; Republic of Iraq v. Simon, April 20, 2009
Cone v. Bell, December 9, 2008
Jimenez v. Quarterman, November 4, 2008
Virginia v. Moore, January 14, 2008
KSR International v. Teleflex, November 28, 2006
Georgia v. Randolph, November 8, 2005
IBP, Inc. v. Alvarez, October 3, 2005
National Cable and Telecomm. Ass'n v. Brand X Internet Services, March 29, 2005
Spector v. Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd., February 28, 2005
Smith v. City of Jackson, Miss., November 3, 2004
F. Hoffman-LaRoche, Ltd. v. Empagran S.A., April 26, 2004
Central Laborers' Pension Fund v. Heinz, April 19, 2004
Lamie v. United States Trustee, November 10, 2003
Clay v. United States, January 13, 2003
United States v. Bean, October 16, 2002
Devlin v. Scardelletti, March 16, 2002
Bartnicki v. Vopper, December 5, 2000
Egelhoff v. Egelhoff, November 8, 2000
Norfolk Southern R. Co. v. Shanklin, March 1, 2000
Los Angeles Police Dept. v. United Reporting Publishing Corp., October 13, 1999
Cunningham v. Hamilton County, OH, April 19, 1999

US high court looks at race in college admissions
10:41 PM, Oct. 8, 2012
Written by MARK SHERMAN Associated Press

WASHINGTON Nine years after the Supreme Court said colleges and universities can use race in their quest for diverse student bodies, the justices have put this divisive social issue back on their agenda in the middle of a presidential election campaign.

Nine years is a blink of the eye on a court where justices can look back two centuries for legal precedents. But with an ascendant conservative majority, the high court in arguments Wednesday will weigh whether to limit or even rule out taking race into account in college admissions.

The justices will be looking at the University of Texas program that is used to help fill the last quarter or so of its incoming freshman classes. Race is one of many factors considered by admissions officers. The rest of the roughly 7,100 freshman spots automatically go to Texans who graduated in the top 8 percent of their high school classes.

A white Texan, Abigail Fisher, sued the university after she was denied a spot in 2008.

The simplest explanation for why affirmative action is back on the court's calendar so soon after its 2003 decision in Grutter v. Bollinger is that the author of that opinion, Sandra Day O'Connor, has retired. Her successor, Justice Samuel Alito, has been highly skeptical of any use of racial preference.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, a dissenter in the 2003 decision, probably holds the deciding vote, and he, too, has never voted in favor of racial preference.

"As a result," said Supreme Court lawyer Thomas Goldstein, "No matter what the court does, it is quite likely that the UT program is going to be in big trouble."

The challenge to the Texas plan has gained traction in part because the university has produced significant diversity by automatically offering about three-quarters of its spots to graduates in the top 10 percent of their Texas high schools, under a 1990s state law signed by then-Gov. George W. Bush. The program since has been changed so that now only the top 8 percent gain automatic admission.

More than eight in ten African-American and Latino students enrolled in Austin last year were automatically admitted, according to university statistics.

Cosponsored By:

• National Affairs
• Committee on Lectures (funded by Student Government)