At the time of the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Boumediene v. Bush three weeks ago, the Justice Department had four lawyers devoted to handling about 250 Guantanamo Bay habeas cases.

Now that the high court has cleared the way for detainees to challenge their captivity in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Justice is trying to fatten its team to 50 lawyers — half of whom would be assigned to clean up or augment the government’s evidence.