Supreme Court Last Stop for Goodwin Partner Before Leaving Firm

Gerard Cedrone has one more thing to do before leaving his firm to take a new job. The Goodwin partner must make his first Supreme Court argument.

Cedrone, who’s heading to the Massachusetts Solicitor General’s Office, is set to argue an immigration case on Tuesday. He’ll be the fifth Goodwin partner to argue at the high court in the past six years.

That’s in large part due to changes at Goodwin’s Appellate and Supreme Court Litigation group to ensure everyone who wants to work on high court cases can do so, said group chair Jaime Santos.

Santos made her Supreme Court debut in an immigration case last term and says Cedrone’s debut, despite his pending departure, shows the firm’s commitment to sharing such high-profile work.

It “would have been easy to say that we’re not going to let you argue on the way out the door,” Santos said. That “would have happened at a lot of other firms.”

Immigration Timing

Cedrone said the decision to let him argue was consistent with his experience at Goodwin.

“At other places the opportunities flow upward, that’s not been the experience here,” he said of firms where only the top partner argues Supreme Court cases.

The Harvard law school graduate joined the firm in 2017, after clerking for Justice Elena Kagan. Cedrone had also clerked for then-Judge Neil Gorsuch at the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, and spent a year as a trial attorney with the Justice Department’s Attorney General’s Honors Program.

The immigration case that Cedrone will argue came to the firm through the appellate group’s efforts to more systematically track potential high court cases and its deep roots with immigration groups.

The issue in Velazquez v. Garland is a technical and regards the deadline for filing a motion to reopen a removal proceeding.

Hugo Monsalvo’s 60-day period for filing his motion ended on a Saturday, so he submitted it the next business day.

The Tenth Circuit said Monsalvo filed too late and was no longer eligible to challenge his removal. “While perhaps harsh,” the court said the consequences “are compelled by statute.”

But the court also acknowledged that the Ninth Circuit had come to a different result in another case.

Healthy Trend

Goodwin partner William Jay, who has argued 17 cases at the Supreme Court, said first-timers like Cedrone are part of a “healthy trend” concerning the Supreme Court bar.

Once dominated by high court veterans, Jay said there seem to be more new faces at the lectern in recent years.

Besides Santos and Cedrone, Goodwin partner David Zimmer has argued three cases since making his debut in 2018. Partner Brian Burgess argued before the justices twice in 2019.

There aren’t necessarily more firms arguing at the Supreme Court, but those firms are sending more lawyers, Jay said.

The justices have in the past criticized the quality of first-time advocates, but Jay said those being sent to argue are up to the task.

“You don’t need to have done 25 Supreme Court arguments to be good at it,” Jay said. “Jerry’s first argument is going to be excellent.”