The 2025 Jacksonville Bar Association Law Day keynote speaker, Roman Martinez, is global chair of the Supreme Court and Appellate Practice at Latham & Watkins in Washington, D.C.
Martinez has argued 15 cases in the Supreme Court, including cases in the fields of the First Amendment, administrative arbitration, copyright, patent law, criminal law, civil rights, employment and civil and criminal procedure.
He also has argued dozens of appeals in most of the D.C. federal circuits, as well as in New York, California, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee appellate courts, among others.
At the JBA Law Day lunch and meeting May 1, Martinez shared his perspectives on the nation’s highest court from behind the scenes as a law clerk and what it is like to stand in front of the nine justices while arguing a case.
“Being a law clerk for Chief Justice (John) Roberts was a dream apprenticeship for a young lawyer,” he said.
Each justice has four clerks who “help them figure out which cases to take,” Martinez said.
Unlike other courts, the Supreme Court has discretion over its docket and may hear 55 or 60 cases out of about 5,000 petitions filed each year, he said.
About a week before oral arguments were to take place, the clerks would present the case to the justices who would ask questions about the facts.
“You had to be absolutely prepared,” Martinez said.
When the cases are argued, the clerks sit in the front row. When oral arguments conclude, the clerks have 10 days to draft an opinion and present it to the justices.
“I enjoyed clerkship so much that I decided to practice appellate law. Being in front of the court is fun,” Martinez said.
Standing 10 feet from the chief justice can be nerve-racking, but “your nerves go away when you get to the lectern,” Martinez said.
Oral arguments for each side last 30 minutes, during which time the justices may ask as many as two questions per minute,
“You have to be ready for whatever they throw your way,” Martinez said.
Seeing the process from both sides “left me with great faith and great confidence in the Supreme Court and faith in our independent judiciary,” he said.
Martinez attended Yale Law School and after receiving a J.D. he was law clerk to then-D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh in 2008-09.
Martinez was an associate at Latham & Watkins from 2010 to 2013 then left to be an assistant to the U.S. Solicitor General.
He returned to the law firm as a partner in 2016.
Martinez is a member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Administrative Law & Government Litigation Advisory Committee, the Advisory Council of the Federal Circuit and the Federalist Society’s Administrative Law & Regulation Practice Group.
He previously was a member of the D.C. Circuit’s Advisory Committee on Procedures and the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia’s Committee on Grievances.