Big Law's Troubling Sway at the Supreme Court
The same major law firms, known as Big Law, support progressive causes in cases before the Supreme Court, dominating legal practice there.
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There’s a big-money influence operation going on behind the scenes at the Supreme Court—just not the one you’ve heard about.
Motivated partisans keen to discredit the Supreme Court’s conservative justices pound the table and rail on about a “dark money” conspiracy that uses gifts and front groups to reshape the law to the benefit of big business and right-wing billionaires.
As others have pointed out, this account always has been overly simplistic, but it certainly suits the narrative of those who wish to delegitimize the high court to advance their liberal agenda.
Rarely mentioned, though, is the major influence that large law firms have on which cases the Supreme Court decides to hear, or any discussion about which side those firms support in the briefs they file before the high court.
A recently published study from professor Derek Muller of Notre Dame Law School finds that the 100 largest and highest-grossing law firms in the U.S. overwhelmingly support progressive causes via amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs that they file with the court. The law firms are ranked by American Lawyer magazine and often are referred to in legal circles as Big Law or the AmLaw 100.
The talented lawyers employed by these firms prepared these briefs at no cost (or, as lawyers say, on a pro bono basis), effectively donating thousands upon thousands of nonbillable lawyer-hours (from lawyers who often charge well in excess of $1,000 per hour) and thousands of dollars of additional firm resources to support these causes.