Davis Polk partner and Supreme Court & Appellate practice head Kannon Shanmugam was featured on the Original Jurisdiction podcast, where he talked about his career journey and current practice with host David Lat. 

Discussing his time as an Assistant Solicitor General, Kannon said, “I was lucky that I was relatively young when I was in the Solicitor General’s Office, because I think I probably didn’t know enough to realize how nervous I should be about arguing cases in the Supreme Court. I was still in the heady days of youth and felt very confident in my own abilities.”

David noted the rise of a specialized Supreme Court and appellate bar, to which Kannon said, “I think it really reflects a broader trend in the law, which is the ever greater degree of specialization in legal practice – and perhaps that’s not surprising, because we have many more lawyers in the profession than we did 25 or 50 years ago.”

“So, as in many other areas of practice, people have come to recognize that it takes a particular set of skills and a particular type of knowledge to be an effective appellate advocate,” he added.

Speaking about how his time in his current Supreme Court & Appellate practice breaks down, Kannon noted, “I think the court of appeals bucket is probably by volume the most significant – because if you take a typical year, a good year for a Supreme Court advocate is three or four arguments, barring something really unexpected happening. But a typical year for me in the courts of appeals is about a dozen arguments, and sometimes it can be more than that. And if anything, cases in the courts of appeals can sometimes be even more labor-intensive to prepare for than cases in the Supreme Court, because cases in the Supreme Court often involve these neat, discrete legal issues.”

When asked about his decision to join Davis Polk, Kannon answered, “I think I’ve always had a simple ambition, which is to have the very best appellate practice in the country, and I would say that over the months leading up to my departure, I thought really long and hard about where would be the best place to do that for the remainder of my career. And in that, I very much had a partner in my colleague, Masha Hansford, who came over with me and who I believe is the finest appellate lawyer of her generation. … We were very deliberate in how we went about doing it. And I’ll tell you, David, that a few months before I came over to the firm, I remember I was sitting in a coffee shop in New York, and I remember thinking to myself, … where might I want to go? And I made a list, and…Davis Polk was at the top of that list, and it was at the top of my list even before I had any idea that the firm would be interested.”

Kannon finished by providing career advice, saying, “A career is like a climbing wall. Sometimes you have to go sideways or even down to get to where you want to go.”

“It’s okay to make mistakes and to perhaps do something just because it’s interesting, not because it’s the next step on the career ladder,” he added. “I actually think that when you talk to really successful people, at some point along the way, they can point to something that’s in that category.”

“‘A Simple Ambition—The Very Best Appellate Practice’: Kannon Shanmugam,” Original Jurisdiction (June 10, 2026) 

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