KATHLEEN SULLIVAN and the APPEAL of APPELLATE LAW Appealing Appellate How Kathleen M

KATHLEEN SULLIVAN AND THE APPEAL OF APPELLATE LAW Appealing Appellate How Kathleen M. Sullivan went from academia to the only female name partner among the 100 largest firms in the country

BY TIMOTHY HARPER PHOTOGRAPHY BY MICHAEL PARAS

WHEN KATHLEEN M. SULLIVAN Lots of coffee. At the courthouse, homemaker, to whom Sullivan noble. Lawyers were ushering in a makes an argument before the she and her colleagues are ushered was extremely close. They were peaceful transition of power after a U.S. Supreme Court—and she’s into the lawyers lounge. Each the first in their families to go to national crisis.” argued before it nine times—this attorney who appears—whether college, and passed along a love That’s when she began thinking is her routine. making an argument or sitting in of education and a strong work seriously about becoming a lawyer. A few days in advance, she silent support as second chair—is ethic to their children. Sullivan After Cornell, she spent two years and several colleagues from her given a quill pen as a souvenir of and her two younger brothers studying politics, philosophy and firm, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & the occasion. Sullivan is so focused were jocks, playing whatever sport economics as a Marshall scholar Sullivan, take the Acela or a shuttle she sometimes has to be reminded was in season; she credits her at Oxford. At Harvard Law School, flight from New York to D.C. They to take her pen, but so far she has competitiveness to playing field even before getting a rare A+ in check in at the Hotel Sofitel, near collected approximately 30 of hockey at Cold Spring Harbor constitutional law from professor the White House, which she calls them: nine from cases she argued High School. Laurence Tribe, Sullivan was working “our lucky charm.” Then they spend personally and the rest from sitting For a while when she was young, on Supreme Court appeals with him nearly every waking moment talking second chair. she thought she might become a as a research assistant. “Kathleen about the case. They eat together, At this point, Sullivan, 59, is like nurse. She considered scientist, then became the most impressive anticipating questions. They take a well-conditioned boxer before astronaut. Ruth Epstein, a partner appellate advocate I’d ever worked long walks on the National Mall, a match, and her colleagues at Stradley Ronon Stevens & Young with—and she remains the best I’ve practicing answers. “We keep are like trainers hovering in her in D.C., recalls meeting Sullivan at ever seen,” Tribe says. “Her talent refining what we think the hard corner. When Chief Justice John a summer program for gifted high for turning a phrase to capture the questions are, and how we think Roberts recognizes her from the school students where the 19-year-old essence of a complex idea and to we should answer them,” Sullivan bench, and Sullivan stands up, Epstein worked. “At the age of 15, she make it easily accessible—without says. “That process, I have to tell takes a deep breath and begins, had star quality already—charisma oversimplification or condescension— you, is about as good as it gets—the “Mr. Chief Justice, and may it of a kind I have not seen before or is absolutely unique.” process of being steeped in a case.” please the Court … ” she is all since,” Epstein says. “I believe she was Instead of joining a big firm That single-minded alone in the ring. But she doesn’t the desert-island person for almost as a litigator after graduation, concentration has helped Sullivan feel alone. She is standing on the everyone in that program.” she clerked for a year for Judge win scores of cases in federal and shoulders of all of those who have She graduated from high James L. Oakes of the 2nd U.S. state appeals courts, and prompted supported her over the years. school in 1972, the summer of Circuit Court of Appeals and then speculation that she could become the Watergate break-in, and over opted for a low-paying job as a the first openly gay justice on the SHE WAS NAMED KATHLEEN the next two years at Cornell litigation associate for Tribe— U.S. Supreme Court. It’s also helped Marie after both grandmothers, closely followed the unfolding helping prepare his U.S. Court of her become the only female name and grew up in the 1950s and ’60s scandal. “I realized then that Appeals and Supreme Court briefs, partner among the largest 100 firms on Long Island in an “incredibly everything was being done by including some early gay-rights in the nation. happy” extended Irish family lawyers. Lawyers had been the cases. That’s where she got her On the day of the argument, that followed the news of the special prosecutors. Lawyers were Supreme Court walking ritual. Tribe Sullivan rises early and goes to day and expected girls to speak running the committee hearings often took her on long strolls along the gym for the stationary bike their minds. Her father, Robert, for the impeachment. Lawyers the Charles River to talk about and weights. She has the same was a business executive and her were representing various parties cases. They had a couple of cases breakfast: two bananas and coffee. mother, Joan, a schoolteacher and before those hearings. It was together in Hawaii and Puerto Rico, KATHLEEN M. SULLIVAN · PARTNER, QUINN EMANUEL URQUHART & SULLIVAN · APPELLATE · NORTHERN CALIFORNIA SUPER LAWYERS: 2007; TOP 50 WOMEN: 2007 · NEW YORK METRO SUPER LAWYERS: 2009–2014; TOP 50 WOMEN: 2010–2014

and when they arrived they would Law textbook. A few years later, she internal appeals, she held onto her often start by the way you frame change into their swimsuits and got top billing; after his death in Stanford professorship and kept your complaint,” she says, “or by spend hours floating and paddling 2002, she continued to publish new teaching. “We did a lot of business the way you write your motion to as they discussed their cases. “It editions. By this point she was dean and amicus briefs,” she says. “I was dismiss, or by the way you argue was: ‘Glug, glug—I think we should at Stanford, the first female dean of hustling for appeals from outside your summary judgment motion.” cite Plessy v. Ferguson—glug, glug, any school at Stanford. During her the firm, hustling for Supreme Court She often helps write motions for glug,’” she remembers. stint, 1999 to 2004, she helped raise work.” The rise was quick. In 2007, the firm’s trial lawyers, but makes Still anticipating going to a big $106 million in donations and saw she became a partner; in 2010, it clear that she is not a trial lawyer firm, she suddenly got an offer to women make up more than half the she was made name partner; in herself. “I wouldn’t ever purport to join the faculty at the University of graduating class. 2012, she finally resigned from the step into their shoes to do a cross- Virginia School of Law. Other offers She was still teaching full time Stanford faculty. She moved back to examination or a killer deposition,” rolled in: Penn, Columbia, Yale and and devoting one day a week to her New York City in 2007, though her she says. “But I do try to help my Harvard. She went with Harvard. mostly pro bono constitutional law work often allows her to spend up to trial partners on dispositive legal Teaching was new to her. practice—as she’d done throughout two weeks a month back on the West motions earlier on in the cases. “Kathleen asked me for pointers,” her career—when, in late 2004, she Coast with her longtime partner, Also, post-trial motions. Post- remembers her friend and colleague was approached by an old friend Helen Stacy, an international law trials are incredibly important Margaret Jane Radin, now a law and colleague, William Urquhart, scholar at Stanford. Sullivan says her because that is where you set up professor at the University of who had gone on to co-found sexual orientation doesn’t matter to your appeal.” She likes to think her Michigan. “It turned out she didn’t the litigation-only law firm Quinn clients any more than the fact that appellate practice reassures clients need any. She won the award for best Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges. she’s a woman, Irish or a redhead. that they won’t have to start over teacher. She was an amazing teacher. “You have climbed to the top of As an academic, Sullivan with a new firm if and when their She drew in every student, in classes the mountain in academia,” he told typically analyzed cases long case moves up to the next level. of 100 or more, even in the back row.” her. “You need a new mountain to after all the critical decisions had Under Sullivan, Quinn Emanuel’s In 1993 Sullivan switched to climb. Why don’t you come start an been made; at Quinn Emanuel, appellate practice has grown to Stanford Law, where she teamed up appellate practice at our firm?” she could watch those decisions 40 lawyers, including seven other with Gerald Gunther to help write Initially, as of counsel, working being made. “I realized that legal partners. Mary Kay Vyskocil, a new editions of his Constitutional parttime and handling the firm’s issues that become your appeal senior litigation partner at the New Attorney Kathleen Sullivan (R) speaks to the media after representing Royal Dutch Shell Petroleum at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, October 1, 2012. She has a specific routine every time she argues before the court. REUTERS/Gary Cameron

York office of Simpson Thacher & IN ONE OF HER FIRST BIG APPEALS Dutch Petroleum Co. that reduced and think to yourself, ‘I wish I could Bartlett, recalls a case, “very big, for Quinn Emanuel, she represented the scope of the Alien Tort Statute. play like that.’” hotly contested and often times Mattel in a copyright case. A rival Sullivan went into the case an Ever competitive, Sullivan contentious,” for which Sullivan had sued the toy company for underdog. “We won 9-0,” she says. can recite her win-loss record in was brought in on appeal. “She supposedly stealing its “sculpt”—the “It was a thrill of a lifetime.” appeals—a tough game in which is a brilliant advocate, one of the design for their doll’s head—and Sullivan relishes the way any lawyer with a better than .500 more professional and delightful using it on Barbie. At first she appellate work lets her dissect a record can be a star. 9th Circuit? adversaries I have ever encountered,” thought to herself, “What am I case. “A lot of times appellate law 16-6. U.S. Supreme Court? 5-3. Vyskocil says. “She was always the doing? I am a serious constitutional means finding the thread, even an In 2009, Sullivan’s name was voice of reason, the voice of civility.” lawyer, and here I am working on arcane procedural thread, that can prominently mentioned as a “Whoever she is talking to, a copyright case involving Barbie’s unravel all that went wrong at trial,” possible replacement for retiring that person feels like the most head.” But she was soon captivated she says. “That’s a beautiful art Supreme Court Justice David important person in the room,” by the intricacies of the case: the form. That’s why appellate lawyers Souter, but Sonia Sotomayor was says Quinn Emanuel’s managing 2nd Circuit has a line of cases on bring a very different set of eyes nominated instead. Sullivan says, partner, Peter E. Calamari. copyrights for dolls’ heads going than trial lawyers do. I think we see “It was a great honor to be on the Michael Carlinsky, head of back to Learned Hand. In the end, the cases more in terms of the long- short list, I can’t deny that,” but the firm’s complex litigation the case settled favorably for Mattel. term and institutional precedents makes it clear she doesn’t expect department, remembers that he She’s made new law and they set, which is how the court will to be considered again. She was once persuaded her to lead the headlines for clients such as think about them.” not part of the discussion in 2010 arguments in front of a court where Motorola, Samsung, the University “From the client’s perspective, when Elena Kagan was nominated she didn’t have much experience. of Southern California, and the Kathleen is everything you could to replace John Paul Stevens, for “We go in the courtroom, the panel Federal Housing Finance Agency, want not only as an advocate, but example, and insists she has “no comes out on the bench, and the which oversees Freddie Mac and also as a counselor,” says Russell great desire” to move to the bench first thing the presiding judge says Fannie Mae. The reversal she won Bonds, associate general counsel at any level. is, ‘Oh my gosh, Dean Sullivan! It’s for FHFA in the 2nd Circuit last year and head of litigation at The Coca- For the foreseeable future, so good to see you!’ They exchange allowed the government to recover Cola Co. “Sitting in courtrooms and Sullivan’s life will remain appealing, 30 to 40 seconds of pleasantries. $20 billion from banks involved in conference rooms with Kathleen, I’ve in every sense of the word. She sees Then he turns to Kathleen’s the global financial meltdown. That felt at times the way you feel when no point in retiring. adversary and says, ‘Counsel, same year she won a unanimous you watch a virtuoso musician or an “If I was on a beach,” she says, please introduce yourself.’” U.S. Supreme Court ruling for Royal elite athlete at the top of her game “I’d still be thinking about law.”