I couldn't wait to argue.

• Author: Coates, Timothy
• Position: First Arguments at the Supreme Court of the United States

My first and, to date, only argument in the Supreme Court occurred in 1991 in County of Riverside v. McLaughlin. (1) The primary issue in the case concerned the time frame in which a person arrested without a warrant had to be taken in front of a magistrate for a determination of probable cause.

I was still an associate at my law firm when certiorari was granted, but I had spent almost all my time working on civil appeals. Even though I had been in practice only about seven years, I had already briefed and argued more than fifty cases in various state and federal appellate courts.

The first thing that struck me about oral argument at the Supreme Court was how fast it was scheduled. I had filed the cert petition at the end of the prior year's term, and the Court issued the order granting certiorari on the first Monday in October. When the clerk telephoned to advise me that certiorari had been granted, she also told me the case was tentatively set for oral argument in the first week of January 1991. In fact, oral argument ended up being scheduled immediately after New Years, only seven days after I had filed my reply brief on the merits.

It wasn't necessarily a sure thing that I would argue the case. I was, after all, still an associate, although I had briefed and argued the case all the way from the district court through the Ninth Circuit and had prepared the successful petition for certiorari. In a lot of law firms this wouldn't have made any difference, and the senior partner on the case would have argued in the Supreme Court. Or the client might have insisted on a partner arguing the case, or even brought in a Supreme Court specialist from an outside firm, though that practice was less common twelve years ago than it is today. However, the partner I was working with and the client almost immediately told me that they thought that I should argue the case, precisely because I was an experienced appellate lawyer and was intimately acquainted with the record and the arguments.

I wasn't particularly apprehensive about appearing before the Supreme Court, but as with any court, I wanted to have some idea how they conducted oral argument before simply showing up in the courtroom. Because of the deadline for filing my opening brief and the various intervening holidays, I had only a small window of opportunity to see the Court prior to having to appear. As I recall, I realized on the Wednesday afternoon after I filed my brief that the only...