Rule of Five

About this book

"When in 2007 the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Massachusetts v. EPA it was immediately hailed a landmark. Despite the Court's preponderance of conservative Justices and the years-long effort by the George W. Bush Administration, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, to derail the case, five Justices concluded the Environmental Protection Agency could regulate greenhouse gas emissions. By the narrowest of margins, 5-4, the Justices had sided with Massachusetts, making possible a panoply of new environmental laws and resulting in America's signing, eight years later, the Paris Climate Accord. Until now, only insiders knew the extent to which infighting, accidents, luck, superb lawyering, and the opaque practices of the Supreme Court collided to produce a legal miracle. The Rule of Five recounts the inspiring story behind this triumph of Supreme Court advocacy. It takes us behind the scenes to reveal how Jim Milkey, chief of the environmental protection division of the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office, led a warring collection of lawyers to a historic ruling. Richard Lazarus, the renowned Supreme Court advocate who has given oral argument before the Court fourteen times, provides a gripping account of what was happening behind closed doors and in the corridors of power, from the filing of the petition to the Supreme Court's final decision. Lazarus brings to life the heated debates and personal conflicts that occurred within the competing groups of petitioners, cabinet officials, lawyers, judges, and Supreme Court Justices, even as he explains the inner workings of the Court and the case's larger legacy"--