New documentary follows 'rising star' as he takes his case to the Supreme Court
When it comes to documentary films about the U.S. Supreme Court, there are several distinct types. The most popular of recent vintage was RBG, the Oscar-nominated 2018 bio-doc about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Another about an individual justice was Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words, a 2020 film featuring a sympathetic portrait of the longest-serving current justice.
PBS has aired a range of offerings, such as the four-part 2007 series about the history of the institution, simply called The Supreme Court; as well as the Frontline documentaries Clarence and Ginni Thomas, a 2023 episode examining ethics controversies and other storylines of Justice Thomas and his wife; and Supreme Revenge, a 2019 look at partisan divisions around nominations to the court. Just last month, PBS was back with another history lesson in the form of Courtmaker: John Marshall and the Forging of America’s Supreme Court, about the influential chief justice of the early 19th century.
Another category follows litigants in a particular case, such as The Case Against 8, a 2014 HBO documentary about the legal battle against California’s Proposition 8, the ballot initiative that reversed that state’s recognition of same-sex marriage.
Producers at Bloomberg Law say they were looking to do something different for Supreme Advocacy, a documentary short released this week. The 40-minute film is available on YouTube and Bloomberg Law’s website.
“I think a lot of documentaries about the Supreme Court usually focus on an issue or a person,” Andrew Satter, the film’s director, said at a Dec. 1 panel discussion after a premiere screening in Washington, D.C. “We really wanted to tell a story about the process, about how this works.”
Executive producer Josh Block said, “The other fundamental thing is that we see movies all the time that get law wrong. And I wanted to make a movie that got law right.”
Approaching ‘multiple’ Supreme Court specialists for film
For Supreme Advocacy, the filmmakers chose as their subject Roman Martinez, a rising star among elite Supreme Court advocates, and a case he took to the court last year involving disability discrimination.
Martinez is a former law clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts and a veteran of the U.S. solicitor general’s office. He is now a Latham & Watkins partner, perhaps best known for successfully helping convince the court to overrule Chevron U.S.A. v. National Resources Defense Council, the 1984 case requiring federal courts to defer to reasonable agency interpretations of federal statutes. (Martinez made the argument in Relentless Inc. v. Department of Commerce, which ended up being consolidated with lead case Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo.)
He professed surprise during the panel discussion when the filmmakers revealed that they had approached some other top Supreme Court advocates before turning to him.
“We pitched multiple people and never heard back,” Satter said. “It was a very select list of people.”
“I’m glad I was your first choice,” Martinez said with a smile, in a mock hurt tone. “That wasn’t part of your pitch.”
Martinez has also argued in support of or on behalf of several students with disabilities, with a strong track record of expanding their rights and protections in school. His latest case in that category, A.J.T. v. Osseo Area Schools, is the one featured in the documentary. The case had a sympathetic client: a student with a severe form of epilepsy whose parents were battling her school district over the scope of her accommodations under federal law.
As the case came to the Supreme Court, it was about a thorny legal question over whether two key federal disability discrimination laws require plaintiffs alleging discrimination to meet a higher standard of proof. The film features the parents, Aaron and Gina Tharpe, and their daughter, Ava, but the center of attention is Martinez.
Remarkably, the cameras were rolling even as the lawyer learned this past January that the justices had accepted the family’s appeal of an adverse federal appeals court ruling and would hear arguments in the spring.
If “the case gets rejected, no film,” said Satter.
From there, the documentary has behind-the-scenes access to the process of writing merits briefs, Martinez’s intense moot court sessions to rehearse his arguments, and heartwarming scenes at home where the lawyer is grilled about the case by his young children and enjoys a dawn breakfast with them on the morning of oral argument.
The film also features interviews with Carter G. Phillips, a Sidley & Austin partner who has argued 82 cases before the Supreme Court; Elizabeth B. Prelogar, who was U.S. solicitor general under President Joe Biden (and who argued against Martinez in the Relentless case); as well as NPR Supreme Court correspondent Nina Totenberg and some of Bloomberg Law’s court reporters, whose observations help move the story along.
For example, it is then-Bloomberg reporter Kimberly Robinson who notes that the argument in the A.J.T. case “went a bit off the rails.” The lawyer representing the school district, Lisa S. Blatt of Williams & Connolly, drew disapproval from the bench when she accused Martinez of misrepresenting the positions in her brief. In fact, she repeatedly used the word “lie,” prompting Justice Neil Gorsuch to say, “I think you should be more careful with your words, Ms. Blatt.”
The exchange was dissected on legal podcasts after the April 28 argument, and while the filmmakers touch on it, they don’t let the episode dominate the documentary.
Martinez, in the film, says, “There was a lot of heat at the argument. The temperature was raised a bit more than usually is the case in the Supreme Court. Lisa has been in touch; she’s apologized. I’ve accepted the apology, and we’re moving past it.”
In an email, Blatt acknowledged that she had apologized to Martinez. “I love and respect Roman,” she said.
Hitting ‘refresh’ on opinion day
The filmmakers consider their project to have been blessed by good fortune, from the case beating the long odds to get the attention of the justices, to the Tharpe family’s inspiring story, as well as the fiery oral argument.
“We got lucky along the way,” said Satter. “I didn’t think that anybody would let us go to their house on the day of arguments. That was awesome.”
The luck continued when it came to decision day. As the film makes clear, the court does not reveal when a particular opinion will be announced. The documentary crew had just one day that aligned with everyone’s schedule to film Martinez checking opinion releases.
“It could be very anticlimactic here. We might not get anything,” he says in the film, on June 12.
“So, going to the Supreme Court website here, doing a little refreshing.”
The court announces and releases five other rulings before the A.J.T. opinion, the last of the day. “Oh, we have a decision,” Martinez says. “It’s by the chief justice. Let’s open it up.” (Spoiler alert: Martinez and the Tharpe family win, unanimously.)
Martinez expressed his satisfaction with the film, saying the producers had taken the time to make everyone comfortable, from him and his law partners and associates to the Tharpe family.
“I hope that people who see the film sort of see the judicial system working, especially people who are not lawyers, and they get an appreciation for how the system can work and how it can work right,” he said. “I think that this case shows that, maybe not always, but in certain cases, the system can work… . It’s really about the rule of law and vindicating the rights that people have under the Constitution and under the statutes that Congress has passed.”
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