Supreme Court Secrets Exposed!

Well, OK, not really, but yesterday's USA Today had a neat little article about the tradition-bound workings of the Supreme Court and how much slower life is at the Court compared to Capitol Hill. Two bits in the story caught my eye:

By custom, the first thing a lawyer at the lectern to argue a case must say is 'Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court.' When Chief Justice John Roberts was an advocate, he would write that phrase at the top of his legal pad, in case he suddenly drew a blank.

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who worries about mental vapor lock when I go to court. When I argue in front of the Fourth Circuit, I have a three-ring binder with a few pages of notes about important dates, facts, and legal cites for the case. But on the front page, in a big-ass font, I have "may it please the court," "I represent . . .," and the intro for my case. I've not frozen up yet, but I surely will and I'll have something to fall back on when I do.

The other thing, which I take a bit of exception to, is:

'There is nothing like the formality, and even the rigidity, of the process,' says Washington lawyer Laurence E. Gold. 'When you step up there (to the lectern), you know you have the assigned time of 30 minutes and not a second more. There's no spontaneity. You don't want to breach any of the unwritten rules of place, whatever they are.'

The emphasis is mine. I think that's just plain wrong. Appellate arguments, it seems to me, are often more spontaneous than trials, particularly civil trials where each side has been deluged by discovery and all the witnesses have been deposed in triplicate. At an oral argument, there's no telling which particular issue or sub-issue will catch a judge's interest. Sometimes it won't be the most important issue, and the entire oral argument may lead down an entirely different path than the advocate envisioned in prep.