Which Legal Team Will Get To SCOTUS?

The New York Times reports on the "dueling" going on to be the legal team to argue for same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court.

In a half-dozen briefs filed in recent weeks, some of the best lawyers in the nation spent many pages arguing that their case was the right one in which to establish a nationwide right to same-sex marriage. They pointed out the attractive features of their own cases and the shortcomings of others. In legal jargon, streamlined cases without procedural pitfalls are said to be good vehicles. That made the fancy lawyers sound a little like car salesmen. The case from Virginia, one brief said, is “an excellent vehicle.” The one from Wisconsin, said another, is “an ideal vehicle.” The one from Utah, perhaps the leading candidate, was said to be, with the swagger of understatement, “an appropriate vehicle.”  The battle is for a place in the history books. Still, the sniping among the lawyers was a little unseemly, said James A. Campbell, a lawyer with Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending the bans on same-sex marriage in Oklahoma and Virginia. “As I would read their briefs,” Mr. Campbell said of his dueling adversaries, “I would write in the margin: ‘That’s an implicit dig at this case’ and ‘That’s a dig at that case.’”

Among the teams vying to be heard are AFER, GLAD, Lambda Legal, the ACLU, and the National Center for Lesbian Rights. Freedom To Marry head Evan Wolfson: "Every attorney in the world, it seems, is now eager to be the one that stands before the court in the freedom to marry case, but what really counts is the compelling collective presentation we will all make, no matter which case it is."