one struggling lawyer in open court that acting lessons might help her performance, and in another case calling the city’s attorney, chief of police, and district attorney on the carpet for failing to do enough to stop drug dealing and panhandling around his courthouse. He also had a libertarian streak that Olson particularly liked, having publicly called for the legalization of drugs.
“Very good draw—an independent thinker but widely respected,” Matt McGill, a thirty-five-year-old new partner at Gibson Dunn, wrote back.
The team’s stealth strategy worked: Word of the high-profile lawsuit did not leak before the California Supreme Court issued its decision on May 26. As expected, the court ruled that voters had properly amended the constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. While the court let stand the eighteen thousand same-sex marriages that had already occurred, the window was now officially slammed shut to others. Protesters took to the streets, and within the gay community there was a sense of anguish that the end of the line had been reached.
But on the following day, there came a reed of hope.
On May 27, standing in front of an array of American flags at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, Olson and Boies went public with their effort, announcing at a press conference that they had filed a federal lawsuit challenging theconstitutionality of Proposition 8 on behalf of two same-sex couples. Flanking the lawyers were Chad and the freshly minted plaintiffs, Paul and Jeff and Kris and Sandy.
The week before the press conference, Monagas and another Gibson Dunn lawyer had escorted both couples to their local courthouses to file for a license. As expected, they were denied, giving them standing to sue. “Unfortunately, gentlemen, at this time I can’t do that,” the clerk at the teller window in Beverly Hills told Paul and Jeff. “But should circumstances change, come back to us.”
Both had seized on her words, looking at one another. That’s just what they were there to do: Change the circumstances. “We are going to plan your wedding in a couple of years—this is going to happen,” Olson promised them just before the start of the press conference.
Now, introducing the two couples, Olson declared that California voters, in amending the state constitution, had discriminated against gay men and lesbians simply because they had “the temerity to wish to express their love and commitment to one another by getting married.”
Boies, whom Olson had introduced to the plaintiffs just before the start of the press conference, had nearly missed the event altogether. Chad had gotten word from his office the day before that he would not be there but might be able to appear via satellite. Chad was furious. The whole point, he had argued, was for the two lawyers to stand side by side, the very picture of bipartisanship.
Somehow Boies had managed to get himself to California, and now he played up the odd-couple story line that had, as predicted, packed the room with reporters and would land the press conference on the front page of the
New York Times
the following day. “Mr. Olson and I are from different ends of the political spectrum, but we are fighting this case together because Proposition 8 clearly and fundamentally violates the freedoms guaranteed to all of us by the Constitution,” he said.
But it was Olson whose raw emotion stole the show. “These are our neighbors, coworkers, teachers, friends, and family,” he thundered. “Whatever discrimination California law now might permit, I can assure you, the United States Constitution does not.”
Watching the press conference from his computer at home in Brentwood, Rob Reiner turned to his wife. “I started crying,” he recalled. “We were saying, ‘Can you believe we’ve done this?’”
That afternoon, the clerk in San Francisco federal court, as was her habit, dropped the pile of complaints that had been assigned to Judge Walker over the
“Very good draw—an independent thinker but widely respected,” Matt McGill, a thirty-five-year-old new partner at Gibson Dunn, wrote back.
The team’s stealth strategy worked: Word of the high-profile lawsuit did not leak before the California Supreme Court issued its decision on May 26. As expected, the court ruled that voters had properly amended the constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage. While the court let stand the eighteen thousand same-sex marriages that had already occurred, the window was now officially slammed shut to others. Protesters took to the streets, and within the gay community there was a sense of anguish that the end of the line had been reached.
But on the following day, there came a reed of hope.
On May 27, standing in front of an array of American flags at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, Olson and Boies went public with their effort, announcing at a press conference that they had filed a federal lawsuit challenging theconstitutionality of Proposition 8 on behalf of two same-sex couples. Flanking the lawyers were Chad and the freshly minted plaintiffs, Paul and Jeff and Kris and Sandy.
The week before the press conference, Monagas and another Gibson Dunn lawyer had escorted both couples to their local courthouses to file for a license. As expected, they were denied, giving them standing to sue. “Unfortunately, gentlemen, at this time I can’t do that,” the clerk at the teller window in Beverly Hills told Paul and Jeff. “But should circumstances change, come back to us.”
Both had seized on her words, looking at one another. That’s just what they were there to do: Change the circumstances. “We are going to plan your wedding in a couple of years—this is going to happen,” Olson promised them just before the start of the press conference.
Now, introducing the two couples, Olson declared that California voters, in amending the state constitution, had discriminated against gay men and lesbians simply because they had “the temerity to wish to express their love and commitment to one another by getting married.”
Boies, whom Olson had introduced to the plaintiffs just before the start of the press conference, had nearly missed the event altogether. Chad had gotten word from his office the day before that he would not be there but might be able to appear via satellite. Chad was furious. The whole point, he had argued, was for the two lawyers to stand side by side, the very picture of bipartisanship.
Somehow Boies had managed to get himself to California, and now he played up the odd-couple story line that had, as predicted, packed the room with reporters and would land the press conference on the front page of the
New York Times
the following day. “Mr. Olson and I are from different ends of the political spectrum, but we are fighting this case together because Proposition 8 clearly and fundamentally violates the freedoms guaranteed to all of us by the Constitution,” he said.
But it was Olson whose raw emotion stole the show. “These are our neighbors, coworkers, teachers, friends, and family,” he thundered. “Whatever discrimination California law now might permit, I can assure you, the United States Constitution does not.”
Watching the press conference from his computer at home in Brentwood, Rob Reiner turned to his wife. “I started crying,” he recalled. “We were saying, ‘Can you believe we’ve done this?’”
That afternoon, the clerk in San Francisco federal court, as was her habit, dropped the pile of complaints that had been assigned to Judge Walker over the
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