Kannon Shanmugam, in launching a Big Law Supreme Court practice for the second time in less than a decade, said taking care of clients long before they file an appeal is critical.
“While the practice might be branded as a Supreme Court and appellate practice—and that’s obviously the practice group we’re launching—the ultimate goal here is to serve our clients’ needs at every stage of the litigation and over the full life cycle of the litigation,” Shanmugam said in an interview.
The prominent appellate litigator, who makes his 40th Supreme Court argument Tuesday, is building the new practice at Davis Polk & Wardwell after jumping there from Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison. In 2019 he left Williams & Connolly to create the Supreme Court team at Paul Weiss.
“It is a rare opportunity, and it feels like a real privilege to be given the chance to build the practice here,” he said of his Davis Polk task. “I really enjoy building a practice from the ground up.”
As for his departure from Paul Weiss, he said he was grateful for his years there: “I would not be the lawyer I am today without my time at the firm.”
“It’s important for the firm to have the capabilities to see a litigation through from the very beginning through the very end, and having an appellate practice is part of that,” said Davis Polk chair and managing partner Neil Barr in an interview.
Kannon and partner Masha Hansford who also jumped from Paul Weiss “are truly exceptional lawyers, and Davis Polk is a home for truly exceptional lawyers,” he said.
The new practice will assist clients in dealing with their most complex appeals—some in front of the Supreme Court, but the overwhelming majority will be in front of the federal circuit courts of appeal and state supreme courts, said Jarrett Arp, leader of Davis Polk’s DC office.
“When you look at how litigations are staffed, you now see that appellate lawyers are involved even at the district court level,” Shanmugam said.
No ‘Outpost’
Davis Polk, a storied Wall Street firm with a client list that includes top corporations and banks, has steadily become one of the nation’s most profitable law firms. It brought in more than $3.2 billion in revenue and partner profits nearing $10 million.
By making a strong effort to build in the nation’s capital, Davis Polk is “showing that they’re not just going to be the DC regulatory outpost to a Wall Street firm,” said Justine Donahue, a partner at recruiting firm Macrae.
“They are going to stand here in their own right and integrate cross-disciplinary and cross-office in a way that’s competitive,” she said.
Arp said the firm laid the foundation in DC “quite deliberately for strategic growth.” Davis Polk selectively made “high-impact” lateral hires and increased the size of its summer associate classes and expanded its office footprint, he said.
The firm has doubled the size of its DC office to 90 lawyers from 45 in the last four years, he said. The additions of Shanmugam and his Paul Weiss colleague Masha Hansford are “an exciting next step for us,” he said.
Barr said the firm expects to fill out a team to join Shanmugam and Hansford. “But more significantly, our expectation and our hope is that Washington DC will be a full-service office,” he said, noting that the firm will make more civil litigation and corporate hires in the future.
SCOTUS Practice
Shanmugam, a former clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia and a veteran of the US Solicitor General’s office, has argued more than 150 appeals in courts across the country, including every federal court of appeals and numerous state courts.
He is set to argue for Cisco Systems Inc. before the court Tuesday, and has represented Exxon Mobil Corp., Meta Platforms Inc., and the National Football League, among other clients.
Shanmugam helped secured partial summary judgment for Meta in a precedent-setting case in copyright law in the development of generative AI tools in the Northern District of California last June. Among his highest-profile Supreme Court arguments, he was lead counsel in Seila Law v. CFPB, the landmark constitutional challenge that invalidated the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
He said he long admired Davis Polk and its quality across all practices. That, along with the collegiality of lawyers at the firm, were what he was looking for in the next stage of his career, he said.
“There may be no firm that has a better reputation among clients and lawyers,” Shanmugam said of his new employer. “I hope at Davis Polk that we can build one of the finest appellate practices in the country.”
Appeals ‘Moment’
The Supreme Court appellate is a highly credentialed, close-knit bar that historically sat at just a handful of firms and people didn’t tend to move, Donahue said. “It is having a moment right now,” she said, as evidenced by the reshuffling of top appellate litigators over the last year.
Hogan Lovells’ Neal Katyal jumped to Milbank in February 2025. Former Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar returned to Cooley to lead its SCOTUS practice. Jeffrey Wall, the former acting US solicitor general, and a team of fellow lawyers from Sullivan & Cromwell joined Gibson Dunn last week.
Shanmugam going to Davis Polk is a boost for both the lawyer and the firm, she said.
“When you marry up that high of a level of a Supreme Court advocate with that high of a level of a firm—both from a profitability, a name brand and a platform perspective—you really have it all come together,” Donahue said.
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