Musical Chairs: Alabama SG Kevin Newsom to Bradley Arant
All of this porn talk is making us feel dirty. So let’s turn our attention to more wholesome subjects.
Like the squeaky-clean Kevin Newsom, a devoted husband and father, and one of the country’s best appellate advocates. Newsom — who clerked for our former boss, Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain (9th Cir.), and Justice David H. Souter — currently serves as the Solicitor General of Alabama. The American Lawyer recently picked Newsom as one of the country’s top young litigators:
Kevin Newsom is only 34 and now practices far from the appellate hotbed of Washington, D.C., where he once worked as a Covington & Burling associate. Although he’s lost the three cases he’s argued so far before the U.S. Supreme Court, the former clerk for Justice David Souter nevertheless draws raves from leading appellate advocates. “He’s really, really good,” says Carter Phillips of Sidley Austin; another Supreme Court regular says that Newsom writes briefs with a novelist’s sense of language. His fellow Supreme Court clerks voted him the lawyer they’d hire if they needed an advocate. As Alabama’s SG, Newsom has argued nine cases in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. He’s won seven—and the other two are pending.
Well, we’ve just learned that Newsom is moving on from the SG’s office. From a tipster:
Alabama SG Kevin Newsom will be joining the Birmingham law firm of Bradley Arant Rose & White. BARW now has three former SC clerks working in their appellate litigation section and appears to have cornered the market on this kind of work in the southeast.Overall, this has been a good legal year for the state. UA law just jumped to 36 in the US News rankings, and earlier this year we hosted Richard Epstein and Justice Alito (Cass Sunstein, Justice Breyer, & Justice Thomas visited last year). Emory may be seen as the most undervalued law school, but we will have more grads on the COA this upcoming year (4).
We have confirmed this news with Newsom, so it’s more than just rumor. Check out his gracious statement to ATL, after the jump.
From an email we received from Kevin Newsom:
Your sources (which — gasp! — apparently extend into middle America) are correct. Probably sometime in June or July, I’ll formally take my leave as the SG and head up the road to Birmingham, where I’ll co-chair the appellate practice group at Bradley, Arant, Rose & White. It’s a bittersweet move.The SG gig has, in many ways, been the job of a lifetime. I’ve had opportunities here during the last three years that I really couldn’t have dreamed of anywhere else. (God bless then-AG-and-now-uber-Judge Bill Pryor for hiring me, and now-AG Troy King, when he came on board, for not firing me!)
I am, though, very excited about the opportunities at Bradley. It’s really a terrifically talented bunch of lawyers (warning: marketing pitch approaching).
I’ll make the fourth U.S. Supreme Court clerk in the appellate group (Wayne Drinkwater, Burger OT 1976; Matt Lembke, Kennedy OT 1992; and John Neiman, who’s returning to full-time practice from a law-teaching stint, Kennedy OT 2001). And Scott Smith, who clerked for Sixth Circuit Judge Gilbert Merritt about 10 years back, has already established himself as one of the leading private appellate lawyers in the Southeast.
It’s a great situation — if I can make it even a tiny bit better, I’ll feel like I’ve really accomplished something. And, I should say, Birmingham (my hometown) will be an absolutely wonderful place to raise my two boys.
This sounds like a match made in heaven. Our congratulations to both Kevin Newsom and Bradley Arant!
Earlier: Congratulations to the Fab Fifty: A Constellation of Young Legal Superstars
(18) Comments
Comments
You mispelled Arant in both the title and last sentence :)
Sounds like a class act.
"His fellow Supreme Court clerks voted him the lawyer they’d hire if they needed an advocate."
In my mind this vote took place at a secret ceremony deep in bowels of the Masonic Temple on 16th Street in D.C. But then I wake up and realize what a colossally stupid thing this would have been to vote on. And who would vote? Hs class of clerks? All living SCOTUS clerks? All living *and* dead clerks (God only knows what happens in that windowless building!)?
If you're talking about the number of COA clerks for the 2007-2008 term, your statement comparing Alabama to Emory is incorrect. Emory will have six (6) COA clerks, and Alabama will have four (4), as you state.
Nonetheless, the University of Alabama does, indeed, deserve praise for its most recent accomplishments. It has become a tradition for Supreme Court justices to address students at the Albritton Lecture Series.
*yawn* some "tabloid"
2:54 and Mr. Tipster, where did you get the COA clerkships/school figures? Do you know them b/c you're at the school, or are those numbers publicly available somewhere?
The lawyers at BARW are a first rate group. Birmingham is a town filled with lawyers and the Bradley ones are among the best. Good luck to Newsome...
As reflected under "[p]osted by," I am not a student or faculty member at either school, but a clerk. I am also acquainted with individuals at both schools who have verified the information appearing at:
http://lawclerkaddict.blogspot.com/
At don't think it takes a lot of deduction to realize that Newsom's co-clerks clearly voted on such a superlative. And though not as meaningful as the best brief awards he received in both 2004 and 2005 from the National AG's association, I wouldn't mind having 25-30 of the brightest young legal minds think that I was the best advocate of the group.
Congrats to Mr. Newsom--agreed with 2:47, sounds like a class act.
Some tabloid chatter is positive. Nothing wrong with non-salacious posts to mix it up, 3:04.
He's hot. I'd shag him.
Hi. Kevin Newsom here. I have to confess, I think something got lost in translation in the AmLaw's report that my Supreme Court co-clerks "voted" me their advocate-of-choice. I'm certainly not aware of any formal vote, and, frankly, I can't imagine that any such vote ever occurred. I'm told by one of my good clerking buddies (and the source of the AmLaw account) that the real story goes something like this: A smaller group of clerks, over lunch, and very informally, once decided among themselves that if they needed a lawyer they'd hire me. That, of course, is very flattering and I count it a real honor. But, I'm a little sorry to say, the "vote" was not quite as dramatic -- or definitive -- as the AmLaw piece makes it sound. I just thought that clarification needed to be made.
KCN
Thanks 3:16, I wasn't sure if the dead clerks had a vote. Glad you could set me straight.
But really, there's something extra ridiculous about SCOTUS clerks handing out superlatives. "Well, I *was* stuck writing gibberish for Kennedy all year, but at least I won 'nicest eyes!'" *blink*
It also gives an extra window into clerks’ insecure/overachieving souls. *nervously fidgeting* "...I wonder who will win most likely to succeed this year! If I don't win, I'll just *die.* I never succeed at *anything*!"
2:28, your post gave me a much-needed Friday afternoon chuckle.
2:54: thanks for correcting the post
Is your suggestion that I am a bitter Emory student, or are you posting as a bitter Emory student? In case of the former, you should note that I am an alum of neither Emory nor Alabama.
While I am not an attorney, I did attend Middle School and High School with Mr. Newsom. He was a brilliant sixth-grader, a brilliant ninth-grader, and he never gave anyone even the slightest inkling that he would do anything less than brilliant with his life and career.
And may I mention that he had the best penmanship of anyone I've ever met?
Congrats on all of your accomplishments, Kevin. You have surprised no one.
J Barnett
Love the way the tipster tried to make alabama sound like a legitimate school.