A Supreme Path: From Latin to Campaign Finance Law, to 38 Oral Arguments – Kannon Shanmugam

Early Returns - Law and Politics with Jan Baran

Arguing before the Supreme Court increasingly has become a specialty of an elite group of lawyers. A former Scalia judicial law clerk, Kannon Shanmugam has argued 38 cases at the court.

In this episode, Jan speaks with Kannon about his Midwest upbringing, his route to being a lawyer, his exceptional career, and his times before the Supreme Court. They discuss his most memorable case, Maryland v King, involving DNA and the Fourth Amendment; he shares his observations about the Dobbs decision leak at the Court; and they recall the campaign finance case, McConnell v. FEC (how Jan and Kannon met) which largely upheld the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, otherwise known as McCain-Feingold.
About Kannon Shamugam
Kannon Shanmugam is a partner at the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. He is chair of the firm’s Supreme Court and appellate litigation practice, chair of the Washington office, and co-chair of the litigation department. Kannon is widely recognized as one of the nation’s top appellate litigators. Kannon has argued 38 cases before the Supreme Court, including 29 cases in private practice. He has also argued over 100 appeals in courts across the country, including arguments in all thirteen federal courts of appeals and in numerous state courts. Prior to private practice, Kannon served as an Assistant to the Solicitor General at the U.S. Department of Justice. He also served as a law clerk to Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and to Judge J. Michael Luttig of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.