Word: mccree
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Solicitor General Wade McCree speaks up for the Government
Arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court may be the stuff of lawyers' dreams, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. But for a gentle-looking black lawyer named Wade H. McCree Jr. once a month is more like it. Dressed in striped trousers and traditional morning coat, McCree, 58, appears before the black-robed Justices as the lawyer for the U.S. Government. As Solicitor General, he is responsible for arguing and briefing the Government's position before the Supreme Court. He also decides what cases lost by the Government in lower court will be appealed...
Little understood outside legal circles, this role is crucial to shaping the law. By rejecting two-thirds of all the cases the Government could appeal, McCree acts as a gatekeeper for the overburdened courts. In effect, he decides which issues involving the Federal Government-from the meaning of an agency regulation to the meaning of the Constitution-need to be finally resolved and which issues can be left to simmer. Last week, for example, McCree okayed a Government appeal on behalf of the Food and Drug Administration, which is trying to establish that it has the right to investigate makers...
...McCree is supported by a staff of 18 lawyers that has been called by former D.C. Bar Association President John Douglas the "most prestigious blue-ribbon law office in the United States." All staff members were in the top 2% of their law school classes. Most are young and could be earning considerably more. Instead, they accept salaries ranging from $22,000 to $47,000 to "play in the big leagues," as McCree puts it. Says the Solicitor General: "We have the excitement of being in the eye of the hurricane...
...perhaps for decades, whether members of [racial] minorities are to have meaningful access to higher education." After a few minutes, Justice Byron White interrupted Cox to inquire about the adequacy of the trial record in lower courts. And then for two hours the Justices questioned the lawyers, Cox and McCree and Reynold Colvin, Bakke's San Francisco attorney...