You don't need SBM Blog to recap the highlights of the oral argument today. Recaps and analyses were everywhere. Count on us, however, to find the obscure stuff you need for water cooler talk and cocktail parties, like which celebrity lawyers and notable persons made it into the courtroom without having to stand in line for five days (some may have paid $50 an hour for someone else to stand in line for them, though). Tony Mauro at Litigation Daily reported on who was there:
The courtroom was packed, with luminaries of the gay rights legal
movement sprinkled throughout the spectator seats—Paul Smith, Chai
Feldblum, Evan Wolfson, Suzanne Goldberg and Pamela Karlan, to name a
few. From the White House came senior adviser Valerie Jarrett [Michigan Law, '81] and White
House counsel Kathryn Ruemmler. Justice Anthony Kennedy's wife Mary was
seen in the seats reserved for guest of the justices, and Chief Justice
John Roberts Jr.'s now-famous lesbian cousin Jean Podrasky appeared to
be sitting nearby, though her identification was not confirmed.
In the front row of public seating was actor-director Rob Reiner, a
leader in the challenge against Proposition 8, along with others from
the group he helped found, the American Foundation for Equal Rights.
Lawyer Theodore Olson went over to embrace Reiner and the others before
the gavel fell and the session began.
