but, there was another aspect of katherine colbert's argument which enticed me into writing about it. the hardest thing that a lawyer appearing before the supreme court has to do is to keep control of the argument they want to make because there are nine justices, 8 usually because justice thomas doesn't very often participate in 0 oral argument but there are at least nine very smart people who have already don't thinking about this case and are coming to the argument completely prepared, to befuddle you and indeed to drive the argument in the direction that they would very much like to do. it is important to remember the supreme court justicings do not talk much about a case before they go into oral argument and so oral argument is really an agenda-setting moment and really does shape at least the opening of the conversation that the justices will have when they go back behind the curtains and decide how they're going to vote initially on the case. so, a lawyer who really want to shape that argument, who wants to put some control under the first argument the justices are going to hav