Lisa Schiavo Blatt (born 1964/1965) is an American lawyer known for her advocacy before the Supreme Court of the United States. As of April 28, 2024, she has argued before the Supreme Court 50 times—the most of any woman in U.S. history. She is a partner at the law firm Williams & Connolly and chairs the firm's Supreme Court and appellate practice. She previously worked as an appellate lawyer for the U.S. government in the Office of the Solicitor General and later chaired the Supreme Court and appellate practice at the law firm Arnold & Porter.
Blatt was born Lisa Carol Schiavo in San Angelo, Texas[2] to Dr. Lois Friedman, a psychologist and professor, and Dr. Luigi Schiavo, a software engineer.[1] She grew up in Texas in San Angelo and Bryan–College Station.[3]
Blatt was inspired by Thurgood Marshall to pursue a career in law and began speech and debate in seventh grade.[4] She attended the University of Texas at Austin for college and law school, graduating summa cum laude both times.[1][5] After graduating from law school in 1989,[5] Blatt clerked for then-Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.[1] A year later, Blatt joined the Washington, D.C. law firm Williams & Connolly.[6] In 1993, she moved to the General Counsel's Office at the Department of Energy.[7] From 1996 to 2009, she worked in the Office of the Solicitor General as an assistant to the solicitor general.[5] She worked for the Federal Trade Commission for most of 2009 and then moved into private practice at Arnold & Porter,[5] where she was a partner at the firm and chaired its Supreme Court and appellate practice.[7] She returned to Williams & Connolly in 2019 as chair of its Supreme Court and appellate practice.[8][9] Blatt is also an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University, teaching classes on constitutional law and the separation of powers.[10][11] She has also taught at Yale College.[12]
Blatt has argued 50 cases before the Supreme Court,[13][14] the most of any woman in U.S. history,[15] winning in more than 80% of the cases as of April 2024.[13][16] She has a distinctively blunt and informal style of speaking in court—for example, referring to the justices as "you guys".[13] In one case, she told Justice Gorsuch that "you've not obviously read our expert", to which Gorsuch responded: "That is not fair. Come on!"[17] In another instance, when Justice Jackson suggested a simpler legal test than either side was arguing for, Blatt said "I'm fine with you making up stuff".[16] Writing for Law360, Gavin Broady called Blatt's approach to litigation "equal parts Sun Tzu and Vince Lombardi".[18] Mark Sherman, writing for the Associated Press, said that she "elicits laughs and the occasional sharp response from the justices, who seem to enjoy Blatt's presentations as much as they respect her legal acumen".[13]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, one of Blatt's cases was chosen to be the first remote oral argument in the Supreme Court's history.[19] In that case, Patent and Trademark Office v. Booking.com B. V. (2020), Blatt argued against the United States Patent and Trademark Office's position that "Booking.com" was too generic to be a registrable trademark for a hotel-booking service because it was simply the generic term "booking" plus the top-level domain ".com".[20] The Supreme Court ruled for Booking.com 8–1, saying that the formulation "generic.com" is not categorically too generic to be a trademark, and that the evidence showed that consumers did not consider "Booking.com" generic.[20]
In Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. (2021), Blatt represented a school district that had suspended a student from cheerleading for posting an image on Snapchat after school that said "fuck school fuck softball fuck cheer fuck everything". Blatt argued that schools have a special interest under Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969) in preventing speech that disrupts school activities—even, as here, when that speech takes place off campus. The court of appeals had ruled against the school district, holding that public schools have "no special license to regulate student speech occurring off campus". The Supreme Court partly disagreed with the court of appeals and said that schools can forbid some disruptive off-campus speech.[21] However, it ruled 8–1 that the school's interest in preventing disruption did not, in this instance, outweigh the cheerleader's right to free expression under the First Amendment.[21]
In Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. Goldsmith (2023), Blatt represented photographer Lynn Goldsmith in a suit for copyright infringement of a photograph she took of Prince. Goldsmith licensed the photograph to Vanity Fair for use as a reference by Andy Warhol in creating an image to accompany an article about Prince in a 1984 issue of the magazine. Without Goldsmith's awareness, Warhol also used the photograph to create a series of paintings known as the Prince Series.[22] In 2016, the Warhol Foundation licensed one of the paintings, Orange Prince, to Vanity Fair for use as the cover image for an issue of the commemorating Prince.[23] Goldsmith sued the foundation for licensing it without her agreement.[23] In an argument filled with examples drawing on pop culture, Blatt said in her opening statement: "If petitioner's test prevails, copyrights will be at the mercy of copycats. Anyone could turn Darth Vader into a hero or spin off All in the Family into The Jeffersons, without paying the creators a dime."[23] The Supreme Court ruled for Goldsmith 7–2, saying that both images were used for "substantially the same purpose"—commercial licensing to magazines for depicting Prince—such that the purpose of the challenged use was not transformative and did not favor a claim of fair use.[24]
Blatt has described herself as a liberal Democrat and feminist,[25] and has said that she voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election and voted for Barack Obama twice.[26] During the 2016 election day, when asked by Bloomberg Law who she voted for, how, and why, she said: "Duh! Clinton; early voting; and seriously?"[27]
On August 2, 2018, Blatt endorsed then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court, touting him as "the most qualified conservative for the job" and as having an outstanding record of hiring women as law clerks.[25] Blatt introduced Kavanaugh at his Senate confirmation hearing alongside former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Ohio Senator Rob Portman.[26] Blatt also criticized the Senate for not confirming then-Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.[26] Maine Senator Susan Collins cited Blatt's remarks in announcing her vote to confirm Kavanaugh.[28] Blatt's support for Kavanaugh led progressive activists to lobby President-elect Joe Biden not to nominate Blatt as U.S. Solicitor General.[29]
Blatt has said that the legal profession is "overrun with men, and unless institutions like the Supreme Court do more to hire women, the upper echelons of my profession will never fully include women".[25] In addition to structural barriers to inclusion, Blatt also pointed to a "war-like mentality" that is required for litigation and said that male litigators "generally are more fearless" than women even though many are "obviously clueless that they have no talent".[30] Blatt has also advocated for more racial diversity in the pool of lawyers arguing before the Supreme Court.[31] In 2022, Blatt said: "As far as I can tell, only two black men from private practice have argued since 2003 and one of them, the great John Payton passed away 10 years ago. The other one, Luke McCloud, had not even argued in any courtroom before I got to Williams & Connolly. The numbers will not change unless we act instead of just talk."[32] As of 2019, all three partners in her firm's Supreme Court and appellate practice area were women: Blatt, Sarah Harris, and Amy Zaharia.[33] American Lawyer has called this all-female practice "an anomaly among its peers".[33]
Blatt is married to David Blatt, a fellow partner at Williams & Connolly who specializes in commercial litigation.[34] Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg officiated their wedding in 1995.[1] Blatt's father-in-law, Sidney Blatt, was a noted psychologist at Yale University.[35] Lisa and David Blatt have two children, who both attended Stanford Law School.[4] She is Jewish.[4]
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