'Defiant' Lawyer Tussles for Chance to Argue Supreme Court Case
A fight has broken out over which lawyer may represent Rhode Island and one of its towns in a U.S. Supreme Court case asserting the right to convert a parcel of land into a federal trust for an Indian tribe.
The lawyer for the town, Joseph Larisa Jr., says he has handled the case for 10 years and he should get to argue it, reports The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times. But Rhode Island’s governor and attorney general say former solicitor general Ted Olson, hired for $200,000, should handle the case, according to a Providence Journal story quoted on the BLT blog.
The Supreme Court has refused to allow divided argument time in the case.
Larisa has proposed a coin toss to settle the question, but the governor’s office suggests two coin tosses—the first between Larisa and the governor’s office, and if Larisa wins, a second between him and the attorney general’s office. Larisa told The BLT he doesn’t like those odds. He also proposes moot court arguments before a neutral panel of judges who decide the best lawyer for the job.
Meanwhile state attorney general spokesman Michael Healey rejected any kind of coin toss at all. He told the Providence Journal that the controversy was all due to “Joe Larisa’s ego, which is astounding.” He also said Larisa was acting like an “oppositional, defiant toddler.”
