Double Trouble: Husband and wife take on FantasySCOTUS
What could be more romantic than spending an evening predicting Supreme Court cases? Reuben and Nicole are a husband-and-wife team in this year’s FantasySCOTUS.
TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR TEAM: Nicole is a university professor (both undergrad and law school). Rueben is an in-house attorney. Neither of us has a significant litigation practice. We are both attorneys; we were in the same law school class. Sat next to each other and married three years after we graduated.
WHY DO YOU PARTICIPATE IN FANTASY SCOTUS? Rueben has always been interested in Supreme Court Justices. Nicole teaches constitutional and First Amendment law. We have both always kept up with SCOTUS. It is an extension of our interests and something that we have fun doing together.
WHAT’S YOUR TEAM’S APPROACH TO PREDICTING CASES? Nicole takes primary responsibility for all of the First Amendment and criminal justice cases. Rueben takes primary responsibility for most everything else. We go through the docket and make assignments each month prior to oral arguments.
ANY PARTICULAR RIVALS THAT YOU’RE LOOKING TO BEST FOR BRAGGING RIGHTS? All of them. We want to be first. We have failed to earn full points in past years because we’ve failed to predict a case before the Court has decided it, or because we have made dumb technical mistakes (i.e., failed to save our prediction).
WITHOUT GIVING AWAY ANY SECRETS, ANY NOTEWORTHY OR UNUSUAL METHODS EMPLOYED? We read the lower court opinions as well as the oral argument transcripts. Nicole sometimes reads cases that she thinks are the most relevant precedents. We talk about the cases a lot (ask our kids!).
Do you have a team in this year’s FantasySCOTUS? Submit a team profile including some information about your team to legal.current@thomsonreuters.com
