“The part that the public sees is the arguments up at the podium and the briefs that we file. But a significant part of the job - in fact, I'd say I spend more of my time on this part of the job, which is deciding what the position of the United States will be in the cases that we're going to be participating in before the court.” StatesFactsJobsUnitedCasesUnited StatesPositionArgumentCourtSignificantMy TimeFilesParticipating Author:Donald Verrilli Jr.
“Very quickly the lawyers in the Justice Department pulled together a set of recommendations about how we ought to defend the law as a constitutional matter. And it was the lawyers in the Justice Department who thought that it was important to include the tax power argument as part of it.” ImportantMatterTogetherLawJusticeOughtTaxesArgumentLawyerDepartmentRecommendations Author:Donald Verrilli Jr.
“The moot court process in our office when we get ready, we - everybody, including the SG, does two moot courts for each argument. And they are phenomenal, and they predict 90 percent of the questions that I get asked, at least 90 percent.” DoeTwoProcessReadyOfficePercentArgumentCourtIncludingPhenomenal Author:Donald Verrilli Jr.
“People have got to make their best calls in what they think about a case when they're covering it. But I do think the lesson there, and I guess stating the obvious, that oral argument can as often send a false signal as an accurate signal about where the thing is going.” PeopleThinkingCasesLessonsArgumentObviousAccurateSignalsCoveringStating The Obvious Author:Donald Verrilli Jr.
“It's the spring of 2012, that the [Barak] Obama administration would be embracing the argument that the Affordable Care Act was a tax, and that was going to, itself, be a political albatross.” Would BeCarePoliticalTaxesSpringArgumentAdministrationAffordableAffordable Care ActAlbatrossBarak Obama Author:Donald Verrilli Jr.
