Until this summer, Paul Clement had never been hugged by a client.

He’d been in George W. Bush’s solicitor general’s office for eight years, building a reputation as one of the most skilled appellate advocates of his generation as he argued the trickiest of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and appellate courts. But, he acknowledged wryly, “In government, your client tends to be abstract — the United States of America. Or, slightly less abstract — the Securities and Exchange Commission.”