1st Oral Argument for Jenner Associate is in US Supreme Court

It was Lindsay Harrison's first oral argument. And it was in the U.S. Supreme Court.

So was the 30-year-old Jenner & Block associate perhaps just a bit nervous before she walked into court on Wednesday?

Not as much as she expected to be, reports Above the Law.

"I was still surprisingly calm. I was making jokes until the minute before the argument started," she tells the law blog. "Then I felt trepidation, when the justices walked in. You see the nine of them, and you're standing right there in front of them. That moment is terrifying."

Her calm in the pro bono immigration asylum case was promoted by good preparation: The 800 hours she has spent on Niken v. Filip and earlier appellate work in the case, Harrison says, included five "full-dress moots." The final one, on the Sunday morning before the oral argument—which also happened to be the Sunday before the presidential inauguration—lasted for three or four hours, and included six of Jenner & Block's appellate partners.

Additional details and links to briefing are provided in an earlier AmLaw Daily post written before the argument.

At issue in the Supreme Court case—which is, according to Jenner & Block, likely to be an important precedent for a number of immigrants—is the standard that should be applied to determine whether an immigrant is entitled to a stay of deportation while seeking asylum in a federal appeal.