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Conservative law firm racks up wins as US Supreme Court shifts right [1]
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Date: 2023-07-03
Summary Consovoy McCarthy achieves late founder's goal in affirmative action cases
Firm also represented plaintiffs in student loan case
July 3 (Reuters) - Law firm Consovoy McCarthy achieved a long-sought victory on Thursday when the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to strike down race-based college admissions policies. But the firm’s co-founder, Thomas McCarthy, told reporters afterward that the occasion was “bittersweet.”
William Consovoy, the firm's other founder and a prominent conservative lawyer who once led the lawsuit challenging affirmative action at Harvard University, died in January at age 48.
"It was his brilliant vision, his skillful strategy, and his boundless energy that led the way," McCarthy told Reuters.
Consovoy McCarthy represented Students for Fair Admissions, a group founded by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum, in the successful challenges to race-based admissions policies at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
“Every time we got together and shook hands or hugged, we always recognized there was only one thing wrong with this picture,” Blum said, describing the aftermath of the decision. “Will Consovoy wasn’t here.”
The law firm notched another partial victory on Friday, when the Supreme Court blocked President Joe Biden’s plan to forgive $430 billion in student loan debt.
Consovoy McCarthy lawyers represented two college graduates ineligible for the full student debt relief in one of two cases that challenged Biden’s executive order.
The Supreme Court concluded that the graduates did not suffer harm that would allow them to sue over the plan, but it ruled in favor of a related challenge from Republican-led states that sought to block the order.
The affirmative action and student loan decisions -- each delivered by the high court's 6-3 conservative majority -- underscored both the court's rightward shift and Consovoy McCarthy's position as a central player in the contemporary conservative legal movement.
The decade-old, Arlington, Virginia-based firm now has more than 20 lawyers. It has represented the Republican National Committee and several Republican officials. It also spearheaded lawsuits for former President Donald Trump over his financial records.
Affirmative action had long been a target of Consovoy's. Students for Fair Admissions was the firm’s first client when he and McCarthy left prominent Washington firm Wiley Rein to start their own practice in 2014.
Blum likened the firm in its early days to a "two-man garage band."
The small law firm piloted both affirmative action lawsuits against Harvard and UNC that landed before the Supreme Court. Before his death, Consovoy personally argued before the 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in the Harvard case.
Consovoy, a former clerk to Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, was set to do the same at the Supreme Court last year but pulled out after falling ill with brain cancer. Two other partners at the firm, Cameron Norris and Patrick Strawbridge, handled oral arguments.
The attorneys argued that considering race in college admissions decisions discriminated against white and Asian American students and violated the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection.
Proponents of the policy said it created educational opportunities for Black, Hispanic and other students from underrepresented minorities and broadened the range of perspectives on American campuses.
Even before the rulings this week, Consovoy McCarthy had teed up other legal battles. The state of Tennessee recently hired the firm to help defend its law banning transition care for transgender minors. It also has ongoing cases challenging a fellowship program aimed at boosting diversity at pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, and targeting Google for allegedly sending emails from the Republican National Committee to users' spam folders.
Reporting by Andrew Goudsward
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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[1] Url:
https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/conservative-law-firm-racks-up-wins-us-supreme-court-shifts-right-2023-07-03/
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