Paul M. Smith

Some landmark Supreme Court case names can easily be recalled by some, think Brown v. Board of Education or Lawrence v. Texas. Even a few Supreme Court Justices, though not by many Americans, can be recalled by a few. It is, however, a futile task to find even a handful of people able to name leading litigators who argue before the high court helping to produce some of those landmark cases.

But the First Amendment Center Fellow Ronald K. L. Collins says it would be “salutary to return to the old practice, and to give credit where credit is due.” Collins gets us started with this post for the First Amendment Center recognizing lawyers who he calls “friends of the First Amendment.”

Topping the list is former ACS Board Chair Paul M. Smith, a longtime, highly successful Supreme Court litigator and partner at Jenner & Block. Smith (pictured) argued the Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association case before the high court this term and won. The high court in the case refused to create another category of speech – there are not many – unprotected by the First Amendment, when it invalidated a California law that banned the sale or rental of violent video games to minors.

Collins writes:

Smith, a partner at Jenner and Block, is as good as they come. He has argued 14 cases in the Supreme Court, including the landmark gay-rights case, Lawrence v. Texas (2003) – another victory others thought unlikely.

Collins notes that SCOTUSblog’s Lyle Denniston, yes a longtime Supreme Court reporter, had suggested shortly after the oral argument in the violent video games case that Smith may have blundered strategically when he argued “that there simply is no problem that legislatures need to try to solve nor is there any way constitutionally that they could craft a solution if they tried.”

And at the end of the day, Smith “prevailed by a comfortable 7 – 2 score,” Collins writes. “Not only that,” he continues, “but the case is chock-full of wonderful First Amendment dicta, or maxims, from the concurring justices, some of which echo arguments Smith offered both in oral arguments and in his briefs to the Court.”

Smith discussed the violent video games case and other First Amendment cases from the Court’s latest term at the ACS Supreme Court Term Review. Video of the event is available here.