SCOTUSblog on camera: Eric Schnapper (Part three)

Understanding the Supreme Court brief and oral argument; the need to state a workable rule; and how to leverage the weak links in the opposing argument.

“Just the way they say, ‘Battle plans never survive contact with the enemy,’ oral argument plans never survive contact with the Court.”

In this six-part interview, Eric Schnapper — Supreme Court advocate and holder of the Betts, Patterson & Mines Professorship in Trial Advocacy at the University of Washington School of Law — discusses his background, from Yale Law School to a twenty-five-year career at the NAACAP Legal Defense Fund to legal academe; how Supreme Court advocacy differs from other legal advocacy; the importance of legal briefs and their relation to oral argument; what one can and cannot prepare for in oral argument; and stories and what one learns from a long career as a Supreme Court advocate.

(Fabrizio di Piazza)