Photo courtesy of Cesar Lopez-Morales

Clerkship

Headed to the High Court

Cesar Lopez-Morales (’14) will clerk for US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor starting in July.

Sure enough, his potential employer—US Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor—was on the other end of the line, joined by her four current clerks on speakerphone.

“I wasn’t sure if she was calling to say I was selected or not,” Lopez-Morales says, “so I just listened very closely.”

Eventually Sotomayor told him he’d been chosen for a clerkship, and “everything after that was sort of a blur,” he laughs.

For Lopez-Morales, who will start his clerkship with the justice in July, the position is the latest—and highest—honor in a career full of honors. Since graduating from Boston University School of Law cum laude in 2014, Lopez-Morales has clerked for three federal judges, spent three years working as a trial attorney in the US Department of Justice’s Civil Division, and is currently a senior associate in the Supreme Court and appellate practice group at Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe in Washington, DC. He’s also published several articles, including a piece in the Columbia Human Rights Law Review arguing that Congress lacks the constitutional authority to govern US territories indefinitely as federal possessions.

“I’ve taken it one step at a time,” Lopez-Morales says. “In terms of what I wanted to do for a career, I allowed myself to be sufficiently open minded that I could learn about new paths I would enjoy based on other things I’ve done.”

Lopez-Morales grew up in a town outside of San Juan, Puerto Rico. From an early age, his parents emphasized the importance of education and public service for him and his younger brother.

“It was very important for them and for us that whatever we did in life needed to be something that would have a positive impact in the community—something greater than ourselves,” he says. “That was always our mindset.”

Lopez-Morales attended Georgetown University where he earned a degree in international politics. He briefly considered a career in the foreign service, particularly after taking a class with the late Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.

But he realized his “passion for foreign policy was more academic,” he says. “I didn’t see myself being in an embassy abroad.”

Because he loved writing and advocacy, law school was “always in the background” of his mind. BU Law stood out in part because it was the alma mater of late Juan R. Torruella (’57), a fellow Puerto Rican and a judge on the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit for more than 30 years.

Once on campus, Lopez-Morales took advantage of every opportunity to lead and learn. He was senior editor of the Boston University International Law Journal, vice president of the International Law Society, a research assistant to Professor Robert D. Sloane, a teaching assistant for the late Professor Mark Pettit Jr., an extern for Torruella, and director of the Homer Albers Prize Moot Court Competition. Lopez-Morales won that competition as a 2L, competing with his friend Jorge Torruella (’14), Judge Torruella’s nephew (Judge Torruella was scheduled to be on the panel of judges presiding over the competition; he had to recuse himself when his nephew and his extern advanced to the finals).  

Cesar Lopez-Morales and Jorge Torruella with the plaque commemorating their 2012–13 Albers Moot Court victory.

“Moot court was probably the most fun and influential” part of law school, Lopez-Morales says. “It made me realize how much I enjoyed appellate and oral advocacy, as well as litigating and thinking about difficult and complex issues.”

Sloane, who wrote a letter of recommendation accompanying Lopez-Morales’ Supreme Court clerkship application, says his former student and RA is “extremely smart.”

“But he did not suffer from the usual maladies of very smart people, such as being egotistical,” he continues. “He is very efficient about getting work done but not somebody who is nerve-wracked or frenetic. He is very methodical.”

Torruella agrees.

“He gives 100 percent to everything he’s doing, no matter how many things he’s doing,” he says. “There’s this ease of how he goes about things; he makes it look effortless.”

After graduation, Lopez-Morales began two back-to-back federal trial court clerkships, first for Judge Jay A. García-Gregory of the District of Puerto Rico, then for District of Columbia Judge Rosemary M. Collyer. Next, he joined the Department of Justice through the Attorney General’s Honors Program, working on cases involving the Administrative Procedure Act, the Freedom of Information Act, and the Appointments Clause, among other issues. In each of those roles, he discovered how much he enjoyed drafting briefs and working on precedent-setting cases. But he found himself wanting to continue through the litigation process.

“I worked on very interesting issues, and then they would go on to other branches of the department to be handled on appeal,” he remembers. “I wanted to stay on those cases.”

In 2019, Lopez-Morales clerked for Judge José A. Cabranes of the US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and, at the time, presiding judge the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review. He joined Orrick in 2020.

In the firm’s appellate group, Lopez-Morales has worked on every stage of litigation, representing clients primarily in the technology and life sciences sectors. He also has an active pro bono practice. Last year, he was counsel of record on an amicus brief arguing that the US Supreme Court should overturn the so-called Insular Cases, which for more than a century have deprived residents in the US territories of their full panoply of rights under the Constitution (In October, the justices declined to take up the appeal).

Lopez-Morales will now have the chance to see appellate advocacy at the highest level as a clerk for Sotomayor.

“One of the things I admire most about Justice Sotomayor is her intellectual rigor and her willingness to be compassionate and have a nuanced view of how the law affects real people,” he says.

People who know Lopez-Morales say he’ll be right where he belongs. Torruella recalls attending a Supreme Court argument in a 2016 case involving the Puerto Rico Public Corporation Debt Enforcement and Recovery Act with his friend.

“To us, that was the Super Bowl of the legal world,” he remembers. “To think he’s now going to be part of that—it’s the definition of reaching your goals. He made it happen.”