Big Gun Case is 37-Year-Old Lawyer's Supreme Court Debut
A phone call from a wealthy social acquaintance led to what presumably must be the biggest case in one 37-year-old Washington, D.C., lawyer’s professional life. Alan Gura was arguing yesterday before the U.S. Supreme Court a high-profile gun-ban case that attracted a lineup of would-be observers two days before oral arguments actually began.
In fact, to “merely call this the biggest case of Gura’s relatively short professional life—well, that wouldn’t do it justice,” reports the Washington Post. “Constitutional scholars everywhere are watching. To oppose him, the city has hired a 66-year-old legal titan who was winning arguments in the Supreme Court when Gura was still studying for the bar exam.”
Opposing counsel Walter Dellinger is a former acting U.S. solicitor general who has a 13-5 win-loss record in the 20 cases he has so far argued in the nation’s highest court, with two decisions not yet issued, the newspaper notes.
As discussed in another ABAJournal.com post, arguments apparently went well, and observers felt a majority of justices seemed sympathetic to Gura’s argument that a Washington, D.C., ban on handgun ownership should be overturned as unconstitutional under the Second Amendment.
In addition to his legal skills, Gura has nonpracticing attorney Robert A. Levy to thank not only for getting the case in the first place but keeping it. Levy, a retired entrepreneur who is bankrolling the case, resisted pressure to put a more seasoned appellate practitioner at the helm after it became high-profile.
“There were a lot of people who said, ‘There are a lot of superstars who could do this case—and Alan Gura’s not—and wouldn’t you be better served by hiring someone else?’ ” Levy says. “But Alan Gura knows this case better than anybody in the world.”
