On Friday, October 29th Dr. Barbara Perry visited the McConnell center to give a lecture entitled May it please the court: How to give an effective oral argument (before the Supreme Court). Dr. Perry is the founder of a Civic Center at Sweet Briar College and is considered a Supreme Court expert (based on her books and personal experiences). The lecture had an accompanying PowerPoint which both consisted of tips for someone who might have to argue before the Supreme Court. An effective argument should show knowledge of the facts (and remove doubt), how it fits into common law, and how it creates justice. One should “look at questions as an opportunity,” and only use comedy when the judges invite it. She also suggested a book (Making Your Case by Antonin Scalia), stressed the importance of practice (in the mirror or in moot-courts), and advised that we should listen to the masters of the trade (such as Ted Olson, Elena Kagan, etc.). She then broke down the individual judges based on their voting records, how often they ask questions in hearings, as well as funny anecdotes into their personalities. Since she wrote a book on the Michigan Affirmative Action cases she used some examples from those to get her point across. For example one of the litigants kept flip-flopping on his facts/beliefs to which he apologized to the court for “confusing them.” A Supreme Court justice replied “you are not confusing this court… we are just wondering if you’re qualified to be answering these questions.” This shows how intimidating justices can be if you aren’t well prepared. It seems the point of her lecture was so to educate people of the seriousness of the endeavor to go before the Supreme Court so that in the future no one will embarrass themselves or the institution.