“Friends” Of SCOTUS Mostly White Men

White male lawyers benefit disproportionately from the Supreme Court system of, once or twice a term, asking a lawyer to argue a case before it as a friend of the Court. Being chosen to argue such a case can be a significant career break, and according to a recent analysis to be published in the Cornell Law Review, that honor goes to male lawyers, most of whom are white. “The current approach permits the justices to dole out the valuable asset of a Supreme Court argument to friends and former employees, in a way that is reminiscent of the cronyism and patronage that characterized government employment” before Civil Service reform, wrote Katherine Shaw, law professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. Shaw told the Wall Street Journal that the study found “gender and race diversity numbers for invited advocates lag behind even the already low number in overall Supreme Court advocacy.” Only about 10 percent of such appointments went to women, with women presenting just 23 percent of the arguments over the entire term. About five percent of invited lawyers are black or Hispanic. Of the most recent 26 appointments, 25 went to former Supreme Court clerks. “The court expands the power and influence of these people,” Shaw said. “But the process of getting this benefit is a closed one that has biases built into it.”