Mike Sacks, currently a third-year law student at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., has embarked on a quest to be the first one in line to see at least the major cases be argued at the Supreme Court this term. (I can vouch for the fact that third-years tend to come up with projects like this that do not involve going to class. I tended to go to the big museums, just a few blocks from the law school, although to be honest my usual class-alternative project was to pull the covers over my head.) He is blogging about it at his new blog, First One @ One First, a great name derived from the fact that the Court is located at One First Street NE, which is just a short walk from the law school.
For the really big cases, you apparently must be willing to camp out the night before if you want to get one of the 50 general-admission tickets. Mike managed to be first for Citizens United v. FEC, a major campaign-finance case that had additional star power because it was the first case argued before a Court that included Justice Sotomayor. He camped out at 11 p.m., although as it turned out nobody else showed until 3:45 the next morning. Mike says that for the really big show last year, District of Columbia v. Heller, people started lining up the afternoon before. Although maybe those are the scalpers.
Link: First One @ One First
