Lawyers who argue at the U.S. Supreme Court can spend weeks, or even months, getting ready. Jeffrey Rasmussen, a lawyer in Louisville, Colorado, had a little more than 48 hours to prepare for an argument Monday, his debut appearance.

The compressed schedule wasn’t intentional 11th-hour cramming. Rasmussen and Riyaz Kanji, who had two earlier Supreme Court arguments to his name, couldn’t agree on who would appear in support of Native American tribes in a dispute over hundreds of millions of dollars in federal virus-era relief. Rasmussen got the nod Friday afternoon.