Supreme Court Won’t Extend Deadline For Busy Lawyers

Chief Justice John Roberts gave a one word answer to a school board’s request that the deadline for filing its cert application be extended: No. The school board intends to ask the high court to review rulings allowing a transgender high school student to use the bathroom of his gender identity rather than his biological sex, but the nature of the case may have little to do with the refusal. The application said the school board’s lead counsel is currently engaged full-time in a federal trial, representing the leaders of the North Carolina legislature in litigation challenging a state law that requires people to use the public bathrooms that accord with their biological sex. But according to a treatise on Supreme Court procedure, “a case considered important enough to submit to the Supreme Court should normally be given priority in a lawyer’s work schedule,” and only an aggravated and unavoidable situation may induce favorable action on an extension.