UTAH: Attorney General Selects Outside Law Firm For Same-Sex Marriage Appeal

Via the Salt Lake Tribune:

The Utah Attorney General’s Office has hired Gene C. Schaerr [PHOTO] to lead a team of attorneys in the state’s defense of its constitutional amendment prohibiting same-sex marriage. Attorney General Sean Reyes said Schaerr, a Utah native, is an “elite” appellate and Supreme Court expert and “understands our unique history and community.” Schaerr, a graduate of Brigham Young University and Yale law school, has handled more than 100 cases in federal and state appellate courts. He was a law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Justice Antonin Scalia, and spent two years as associate counsel to former President George H. W. Bush. “Mr. Schaerr has spent a long and distinguished career as a leader at some of the world’s largest law firms,” Reyes said Thursday. “We are pleased that he is so eager to represent our state and that he would leave his firm so he can focus on this case exclusively.” According to a press release from the AG’s Office, Schaerr had an 80 percent win rate in the 10th Circuit Court and a 75 percent win rate for dozens of federal appeals argued in the past five years.

The law firm has agreed to cap their total fees at $300,000.