Last summer, Haynes and Boone associate Andrew Guthrie was presented with a tantalizing offer—would he like to argue a juicy political free speech case in front of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit? There was a hitch though. The argument was only three weeks away.

So Guthrie did what any young lawyer would do with a precious shot at face time with a panel of federal judges—he grabbed the file and immediately got to work.