By Elbert Lin ( February 12, 2018, 4:35 PM EST) -- If you have ever been inside the U.S. Supreme Court, stepping into the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals will give you a sense of déjà vu. It may not be well known outside West Virginia — and fan groups of famed architect Cass Gilbert — but Gilbert based the courtroom at 1 First Street on the one he had designed a few years earlier for West Virginia's highest (and at the time of this writing only[1]) appellate court, and the two are still strikingly similar. In both courts, four marble columns tower behind the bench in front of long red curtains, through which the justices emerge to take their seats. Both benches are engraved similarly with a repeating circle-in-square design. Marble columns and red curtains continue on the left and right of each courtroom. And overhead, both ceilings are divided into square panels, each inset with four smaller square panels that feature intricate floral or sunburst designs. I recently finished four and a half years as the solicitor general of West Virginia and had the privilege of arguing more than a dozen cases before the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. Appearing in that courtroom never got old....