PT Insights

Apr
02

Don’t Act Like A Supreme Court Justice

Lance Morgan

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Dennis Hill

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments on the Affordable Care Act last week, the New York Times had an interesting analysis about the justice’s questioning, which provides some food for thought for people in our line of work.

The Times cited studies confirming that justices “tend to ask more questions of the lawyers whose positions they oppose.” The prevailing wisdom seems to be that the justices like to poke holes in the arguments of the lawyers with whom they philosophically disagree.

I’d prefer to believe that intelligent, inquisitive jurists might be open-minded enough to ask those tough questions to test their pre-conceptions and change their minds if the respondents provide clever or unique answers. But who am I to question the Times, the studies or the justices.

Still, if that’s their attitude, I think it’s exactly the wrong one for people in our business. We bring greater value to our clients by asking them at least as many questions as we’d pose to their adversaries, and make them at least as tough, if not tougher.

To be sure, we want our clients’ public policy opponents to face tough questions from the media, or congressional panels or whoever is responsible for asking them. But we serve our clients best by making sure we prepare them for the kind of inquiries that they’ll get from the other side of the political aisle or argument.

The goal is not to poke holes in our clients’ positions. But to find them and fill them with facts and rebuttals that will stand up to the kind of scrutiny they will face in the public arena. In media training sessions, or mock congressional hearings, I want our clients to be grilled as hard as possible so they are as well prepared as possible for the real deal.

By all means, we should be polite during the grilling (unless, of course, we’re role playing someone for a reputation for contentious behavior). But we’re not doing our clients any favors by tossing them softballs and applauding as they get hit out of the park.

Since none of us has the lifetime appointment of a Supreme Court justice, there’s no reason to act like one. When you get the chance, don’t hold back with our clients. They’ll be better off for it.