When Kannon Shanmugam stepped up to the podium to argue an appeal for Exxon about the appropriate venue for climate change litigation brought by the state of Connecticut last Friday, Second Circuit Judge Richard Sullivan greeted him with a bit of friendly teasing. 

“We’re seeing a lot of each other this week,” Sullivan said to Shanmugam, the chair of the Supreme Court and appellate practice group at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. At the close of more than an hour of oral argument, the judge again quipped: “Mr. Shanmugam, I think I’ve spent more time with you this week than I have with my wife.”