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As a major corporation, Amazon is always in a courtroom.This year alone, Amazon has seen dozens of state court decisions and more than 150 new federal cases. Most, it wins. Some, it settles.Daimler AG v. Amazon is a fight over fake Mercedes wheels (Amazon is represented by Perkins Coie’s Grant Kinsel; Daimler, by Larry Altenbrun of Nicoll Black & Feig and 3 lawyers from Marbury Law Group). That case was put on hold in June after the International Trade Commission launched its own investigation into the illegal counterfeiting charges.In 2015, actress Junie Hoang lost Doe v Amazon, her 2011 suit against Amazon and IMDb, which it owns, for posting her date of birth on the internet. She originally sued as Jane Doe, seeking privacy.In 2014, Amazon was sued by the FTC (FTC v Amazon) over an app used by children to go on unauthorized spending sprees with their parents’ money. Amazon refused to settle — a rare misstep — and lost. The FTC was booed for its bullying tactics in the Wall Street Journal; most FTC targets don’t have the guts to face down the FTC.In 2013, little bookstores sued Amazon in Bookhouse of Stuyvesant Plaza v Amazon over a lock to keep readers from transfering e-books on Amazon’s Kindle to other e-book readers. Amazon won.Amazon has fought lawsuits filed byoffice employees (Jodie Kelley v Amazon - dismissed, the judge citing the fired employee’s use of “extensive and freely granted utilization of FMLA leave an average of 8 days per month”);Kentucky warehouse employees (Vance v Amazon, filed over unpaid time spent undergoing a physical search, required by Amazon as a condition of employment — a battle that went to the U.S. Supreme Court - dismissed); andwannabe employees (Williams v. Amazon, after Amazon rescinded a job offer based on a mistake in the background check that falsely said the applicant was convicted of a felony. Dismissed. But… Amazon was hit with another background check lawsuit in 2015 that is underway.)Amazon fought — and won — lawsuits filed by book authors:Tabatha Tower v Amazon, in which Amazon says it was not served;Rosner v Amazon — a defamation lawsuit that should never have been filed — over a book review criticizing the author for sending “unsolicited email advertisements" of his book, dismissed because it was true; andHart v. Amazon, the court noting the complaint was “difficult to understand”.M-Edge, an e-reader accessories manufacturer, sued Amazon in 2011 for “corporate bullying” and patent infringement. Amazon’s lawyers: Boies Schiller & Flexner, Alston & Bird, and Shulman Rogers Gandal Pordy & Ecker. M-Edge retained Miles & Stockbridge, Niro Haller & Niro, and Silverman Thompson Slutkin & White. Amazon failed to get the patent infringement claims dismissed. So this was settled.Now and then, Amazon loses a case.Toys 'R' Us wins suit against Amazon.com - This loss in 2006 cancelled a landmark deal designating Amazon exclusive online retailer for ToysRUs. The goal was a 10-year alliance to build the greatest online toy store ever known, launched in time for the 2000 Christmas season. The winning ToysRUs attorneys: Michael Dockterman and Richard M. Hoffman (Wildman Harrold Allen & Dixon) and Peter R. Bray (Bray Miller & Bray).

No trick to it. (At least, when they’re meeting and the public can attend and there’s no pandemic going on.)Just pick the day/cases you want to see, then arrive early enough to be in the first fifty in the public line, and you'll get in and can stay for every (morning) argument (separate line for afternoon). (If you're a Supreme Court bar member, you have a special, shorter line with perks like better in-court seating. I can't talk knowledgeably about that experience.) Here's my experience from fourteen days' visits (and twenty-three arguments).What cases do you want to see? Look at the Supreme Court oral argument calendar and pick what interests you. If you don't care what you see, pick cases that won't interest other people. Bankruptcy and Employee Retirement Income Security Act cases are good low-interest candidates.Whatever cases you pick: learn a little about them! SCOTUSblog provides commentary on every case and links to the briefs. At least read those (especially the "Plain English" commentary, if you lack legal training) so you have an idea what the cases are about. I'll also recommend downloading all the briefs and skimming their tables of contents and summaries of their arguments, to get a flavor for all the arguments. For all but blockbuster cases with lots of briefs, it'll be pretty quick. And briefs are far more readable than you'd expect for "legalese".Once you've picked cases, gauge their level of interest to determine when to show up. The first fifty people in line are essentially guaranteed to get in. After fifty, it becomes a bit of a crapshoot: sometimes only fifty get in, sometimes closer to seventy get in, really depends on the argument. If you’re not early enough in line, I believe you only get in if people leave (or you settle for seeing only a three-minute portion of argument and not the whole thing).For bankruptcy and other low-profile stuff, you could probably show up after 07:00 and be in the first fifty. I arrived ~07:20 for Executive Benefits Insurance Agency v. Arkison (2014) (questioning how much authority federal bankruptcy judges have) and was around 22nd overall. (I mostly wanted to see the day’s second case, Marvin M. Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States (2014) [concerning ownership of land given to railroads by the federal government under an old law, that the railroads later formally abandoned], and although I was pretty sure I could skip the first argument and still get a seat, I wasn’t certain of Supreme Court argument procedures enough to try.)For God, guns, or gays (i.e. headline issues), 03:00 or even the previous night might be required. But it's not always predictable. I showed up ~02:30 for McCullen v. Coakley (2014) (concerning protests on sidewalks outside abortion clinics), and shockingly, I would have been in the first fifty arriving at ~06:15. I arrived 05:40 for Walker v. Texas Division, Sons of Confederate Veterans, Inc. (2015) (can a state deny your specialty license plate design because it “might be offensive”?) and was 37th in line, likely because the case coincided with spring break (when students and student groups frequently inflate line sizes). 04:30 netted me 41st for Lee v. Tam (2017) (can “disparaging” trademarks be denied registration — a hot-button question because it affected the Washington Football Team trademark). I’ve also shown up at 03:30 and been surprised to discover I was five minutes ahead of the cutoff, when a massive group of Chinese lawyers visiting the Court took up every single remaining spot in line. Ultimately you'll have to err on the side of caution to be sure to see the arguments. If you’ve got a snoozer of a case and don’t already need to arrive early, be careful about arriving after the Metro starts running (~06:00), as that makes it easy for the line to balloon.Once you arrive, line up. The Court building faces west toward the Capitol building. Directly in front of it is an elevated plaza, then down from that is an arc of black bollards. At the south end of the bollards is a corner of landscaping with a tree on it. That corner starts the public line. Below you see the start of the line for National Labor Relations Board v. Noel Canning (2014), with a camera crew set up to comment on the oral argument.The line is self-policing. You're not guaranteed a spot until the guards issue numbered cards identifying your spot in line, around ~07:15. But if you talk and make friends with other people in line, usually they'll hold your spot while you run to a nearby coffee shop (nearest locations south and to the east) or bathroom (Union Station, north), then you can return the favor. But return by 07:00, because when the guards hand out numbered cards for line position, anyone not there misses out.The guards usually let you inside near 08:00. Once you're past security, you can look at exhibits if you want, but odds are you'll be hungry from line-standing. The Supreme Court cafeteria opens around this time, and it's a good place to pick up coffee and a bite. The kitchen makes various quick breakfast foods to order (omelets, eggs, etc.), and there's the usual continental breakfast options, and it's all reasonably priced (they accept credit cards). When Justice Kagan as junior justice had some administrative responsibility for the cafeteria, she sometimes briefly stopped by pre-argument. (And even after that duty had passed on from her, I’ve seen her briefly pop in before while I’ve been getting breakfast.) I’m not aware that either Gorsuch or Kavanaugh has since done this.When the guards let you in, they'll tell you to line up for argument around 08:45 or perhaps 09:00 (or maybe later; this particular bit of timing has not been consistent, lately) next to the stairs, in the hallway adjacent to the cafeteria. You have a choice: leave things in the quarter-operated lockers on the first floor, or on the second floor? Depositing on the second floor lets you exit the Court down the impressive steps to the outside plaza outside. Depositing on the first floor speeds you up entering the courtroom. If you use the first floor lockers, lining up faster now matters less, because you'll skip the majority of people who deposit on the second floor. Take your pick which you want. As for the line, sometimes they'll insist by number, sometimes not. It isn't hugely important: your spot entering the Court doesn't guarantee any particular spots of known quality.Also: use the bathroom now! You wouldn't want to have to leave the courtroom and not be let back in. (I believe you won't be let back in, but I've never tested it.)Once you're led upstairs, you can deposit things in lockers by coat check straight ahead, or just make a U-turn around the guiding barriers and line up for the last security before the courtroom. You can only bring in a pen/pencil, paper, and paper copies of the case briefs. (No electronics: phones, recorders, Kindle, etc. Wristwatch is fine. No smart watches with recording functionality: so no Apple watches, but my Garmin Forerunner 945 that lacks a microphone would have been acceptable, according to the guard I asked.) And no one's ever complained about my pocket Constitution (although the last several years they have opened it up and flipped through it, I guess to make sure it’s not hiding any contraband).Past the metal detectors and wanding, line up to enter, then wait to be ushered into the courtroom. You'll have awhile to sit tight (speaking quietly with those around you is okay) until around 10 minutes before 10:00, then it's all quiet. At 10:00 the marshall of the Court announces the justices, then it's on to opinion announcements (if any), bar admissions, and the arguments themselves. Enjoy.

Back in the 70’s, if you had test scores good enough to get into either school, and I did, the choice was between MIT if you wanted really hard core engineering and computer science, or Stanford if you wanted ALMOST AS GOOD engineering but also a world class liberal arts education with an awesome football team. Stanford is what you’d have if good Dr. Frankenstein could sew together Harvard, MIT (made in Taiwan joke), and UCLA (LA=lower achievement joke)My 70’s Asian American brothers and sisters (my parents might have been the first to send all 7 kids to either MIT or Stanford, I didn’t get into Harvard because my essay was about the F-18 Hornet which ended up winner of the 70s fighter wars today) were about split between the two, but the ones at Stanford endured living in a trailer park dorm complex, a dining hall strike, a dining hall vendor that went bankrupt halfway through term, and they didn’t have the experience of riding out Boston’s BLIZZARD OF 1978. Not every moment in a dream college is a dream, and you might get some nightmare situations before or after, that’s not even getting into stories of graduates of ivy schools that blew a fuse or MIT’s infamous record of people jumping off the Green building.Stanford is pretty much in walking distance of … nothing, and if you do get to El Camino Real, it’s a giant tacky commercial strip that runs from San Jose to San Francisco if you take the slow route. THE CITY (sf) is pretty much a day trip away,MIT is a walk across the bridge from BOSTON and marvelous subway system, and communities of Chinese, Italians, Irish, Jewish, Greek, African, Mideastern and black that made some horrendous headlines in the busing days, but these days you won’t find yahoos trying to stab black lawyers with a flag on city hall plaza like in the early 70s and somehow I avoided being a victim of crime in some of what I later realized were the more dangerous racist or high crime “diverse” neighborhoods.MIT at the time had a better symphony which toured and recorded. I had the experience of visiting and seeing the Stanford Marching Band which was at one of its heights of craziness in the 70s and early 80s. I think today, the contrast is pretty much the same.To this day, Harvard is still the top liberal arts, MIT the top engineering, but Stanford pretty much combines both PLUS a football team on par with any flagship public university like UCLA Berkeley or University of Washington.What has changed is the crazy idea that EVERYBODY HAS TO GET INTO MIT HARVARD OR STANFORD OR YOU ARE DOOMED, and it’s worse now that MIT is showing up on most top 10 college lists when it used to be a “safe space” and asylum for kids too pathologically smart for Harvard. MIT is not and has never been a generic “best college” for anybody that wins the admissions lottery. Nobody can get in because everybody, especially Asians is trying to get into the same !~@#$%V 10 schools and wondering why they can’t get in. The one beautiful aspect of American culture is the idea that you can be successful and parents should support you NO MATTER WHAT COLLEGE (OR NOT) OR CAREER YOU GET INTO. In Asia, that’s considered craziness. In the old days everything was on paper, and only the people who were in the top 0.2% bothered to apply, now everybody can apply for a lottery ticket, and everybody just wants the college equivalent of a BMW logo on their resume when in reality, there is a good reason the motto of MIT is IHTFP which means I HATE THIS F-ING PLACE and that’s the only T-shirt I still recognize from the old days when I was in Bexley which was the REAL Animal House before they decided to tear down or ethnically cleanse all the dorms of lower class outcast geeks.You can chase your dreams and I had some pretty good shots, but an MIT diploma is no guarantee of lifelong wealth. Some of the classmates I keep up with travel to Europe and Asia on vacation ( I don’t ), some have retired on Microsoft stock, but most are working, have pretty average or above average houses and lifestyles, and if you’re 60 you are not immune from being laid off, fired, or shunted to a contracting track or retirement working at non-tech jobs or figuring out what kind of emergency-spare job you can do between tech gigs. Life is never easy even with a fancy diploma, the trick is to be happy with what you have and make the best of choices available to you not fret over schools you don’t have chance to get into.What happens to the 2nd best 50–60ish tech workers today that didn’t strike it rich: The Second-Class Office Workers I haven’t seen their stories on Quora though this response might be among the first to come out.