Seven may be Eric Brunstad Jr.’s unlucky number. Brunstad, who works out of Bingham McCutchen’s Hartford Conn., office, has been building an impressive Supreme Court practice in recent years by taking on out-of-the-way bankruptcy and estate law cases — one of which, Marshall v. Marshall, turned into a very high-profile case because he was representing J. Howard Marshall, the late Anna Nicole Smith’s ex-husband, who lost. The 2006 case probably brought the high court more publicity than any case since Bush v. Gore in 2000.
Brunstad’s ability to grow a Supreme Court practice from outside of the nation’s capital recalls the prowess of Jeffrey Sutton, the former Jones Day partner who dominated that firm’s Supreme Court litigation from his Columbus, Ohio office before becoming a federal appeals judge in 2003.
