Corkran joined ICAP as a senior fellow in February after leading the Supreme Court practice at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, leaving the world of BigLaw for a career in civil rights work at an organization founded by veteran Supreme Court lawyer Neal Katyal. As the group's new director, she hopes to use her Supreme Court experience to secure and defend favorable rulings for civil rights clients and criminal defendants.
"My hope is that by becoming a full-time member of the public interest community, I can be a resource to civil rights and criminal justice attorneys in thinking through how to best posture their cases," Corkran, a former clerk for the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said in an interview Wednesday with Law360.
Corkran will focus primarily on the Supreme Court, but said she will discuss case strategy with ICAP lawyers and other public interest attorneys at the district court and court of appeals stages. When it comes to the Supreme Court, however, her job might more often involve encouraging the justices not to take up a case than trying to get the court to review a lower court decision.
"When there's been a favorable decision with respect to civil rights or criminal justice in the courts of appeals, my task at the cert stage will be to persuade the Supreme Court not to grant review," she explained. "But certainly in circumstances where the court decides to take a case and review it on the merits, I have the background and expertise to take the lead in those cases and also to collaborate with other lawyers."
"My focus will primarily be on favorable outcomes for civil rights clients and criminal defendants as opposed to trying to get as many arguments as possible," she said.
While Corkran was able to work on public interest law through her pro bono services during her time in private practice, she said that the ability to dive headlong into the work as a full-time director at Georgetown University Law Center's ICAP is a welcome one.
"One of the reasons I wanted to take on this role, and the other folks in leadership at ICAP thought it was a good idea, is that there aren't many Supreme Court advocates doing this work full time in the public interest community," Corkran said. "I'm hoping that I'll be able to provide a resource that hasn't been adequately available at least so far."
Corkran cited the MacArthur Justice Center's Supreme Court and Appellate Program as a model for how to create a dedicated high court litigation clinic directed toward public interest law, saying she hopes to collaborate with the group. Corkran's brief as director will cover a "wide range" of issues that ICAP is working on, she said.
A social worker before she became a lawyer, Corkran explained her move away from BigLaw to do civil rights and criminal justice law in a February interview with Law360. "It was a no-brainer for me," she said.
--Additional reporting by Jack Karp. Editing by Amy Rowe.
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