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To a High Court: The Tumult and Choices that Led to United States of America v. SCRAP Paperback – December 22, 2005

by Neil Thomas Proto (Author)
5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 3 ratings
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Fall 1971, George Washington University: five law students working under the acronym SCRAP, Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures, embark upon an epic David versus Goliath mission. Their objective is to make the nation's Railroads and the Interstate Commerce Commission comply with the new National Environmental Policy Act. Despite the prowess of the Commission and the Railroads, SCRAP petitioned for compliance with the law and a billion dollar refund.

In To A High Court, Neil Thomas Proto, the chairman of SCRAP, chronicles the United States of America v. SCRAP story. Using excerpts from court transcripts and the recently released papers of Justices Douglas, Marshall, and Blackmun and personal experience, Proto offers a first hand account of the roadblocks SCRAP encountered from both the environmental and industrial sides of the battle. Over thirty years after the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in favor of SCRAP, To A High Court offers a timely and pertinent look at the U.S. legal system.

For additional information on To A High Court and author Neil Proto, please visit the book's website at www.toahighcourt.com.
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  1. Print length
    322 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Hamilton Books
  4. Publication date
    December 22, 2005
  5. Dimensions
    6.32 x 1 x 8.98 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0761833617
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0761833611
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

For the Chief Justice, a Dissent and a Line in the Sand. (New York Times)

There is a special lesson in this story. ...Proto's readable, entertaining narrative on how a vital tool for environmental protection was born, midwifed by a bunch of law students, is a must read for tomorrow's environmental litigators and advocates. (Leon G. Billings)

[To a High Court] captures the hopes, fears, slips, and slides of big-time environmental litigation. I wish every student of the law could share [such] moments: adversaries spanning the spectrum of trade association lawyers, oblivious agencies, and applause-seeking environmentalists. ...[such a victory is] harder to do today, but unwarranted optimism has always been behind the better moments of environmental law, and that can never be amended into oblivion or ruled out of order. (William H. Rodgers, Jr.)

To a High Court is consistently perceptive and a pleasure to read. A large part of the story's appeal is its setting in the personal lives of SCRAP's members (along with Proto's insightful digressions on the depredations of the coal industry, the ghost of Louis Brandeis, student anti-war demonstrations, Frank Norris and the insidious interlocking directorates of the nineteenth century). Proto examines not only the legal issues in the case and their historical backdrop, but also the everyday context in which SCRAP's members worked, played and thought... For the rising generation of public interest lawyers, SCRAP's story is a compelling case study of the power of resourcefulness, determination and audacity. (Stone, Antoinette R. The Philadelphia Lawyer)

'It's a wonderful book that evokes not only the case but the five brave and intelligent law students who dared to take on one of the most powerful industries in America, as well as the federal government, and won,' says Peter H. Meyers, JD '71, professor of clinical law, who, as legal assistant to Banzhaf in the early 1970s, worked closely with the students and argued their case before the Supreme Court. (Jamie L. Freedman Gw Law School)

This high drama of five law students confronting the Railroads' power and the government's failure is riveting. The story resonates with questions still central to citizens and legislators: what is the duty of government? And who advocates the public's interest? To a High Court may be a 30-year-old story, but its lesson for holding government accountable could not be more current. (Rosa DeLauro)

[A]ccording to Chief Justice Roberts, SCRAP is back. (Linda Greenhouse)

Today's decision in [Massachusetts v. EPA] is SCRAP for a new generation. (Chief Justice John Roberts in dissent)

Students fighting Goliaths. A timeless theme, engaging characters and plot twists. A Civil Action merged with Paper Chase. I can't wait to see the movie! (Dan Lauria)

To A High Court is a fascinating and incisive account of a major Supreme Court decision. Scholars, students, and those interested in law all would benefit from reading this outstanding book. (Chemerinsky, Erwin)

High Court captured the hopes, fears, slips and slides of big-time environmental litigation. (William H. Rodgers, Jr.)

To A High Court describes, with captivating eloquence and logic, how the imagination and persistence of students can sometimes achieve more than professionals who are restricted by doctrine and imprisoned by caution. (John Bonine)

About the Author

As a law student, Neil Thomas Proto chaired SCRAP in 1971 and 1972. Today, he is a partner in the Washington, D.C. firm of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis. He also is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, and was a visiting lecturer at Yale University.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Hamilton Books (December 22, 2005)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 322 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0761833617
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0761833611
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.06 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.32 x 1 x 8.98 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    5.0 5.0 out of 5 stars 3 ratings

About the author

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Neil Thomas Proto

Neil Thomas Proto

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Neil Thomas Proto has served as an appellate lawyer in the U.S. Depart­ ment of Justice (1972–1977), as general counsel to the President’s Nuclear Safety Oversight Committee (1979–1981), and as a partner in Washington, D.C. law firms. His public service and private practice in law includes environmental, Native Hawaiian, urban, public lands, nuclear power, Native American, and constitutional litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and courts of appeals.

Neil has taught at Yale University and at Georgetown University’s Mc­ Court School of Public Policy. He has written two other books: The Rights of My People: Liliuokalani’s Enduring Battle with the United States, 1890–1917 (2009) and Fearless: A. Bartlett Giamatti and the Battle for Fairness in Amer- ica (2019), which was a finalist in Biography for the Next Generation Indie Book Awards and received the Bronze Award in Biography by Foreword Re­ views. He has also authored numerous articles on baseball, space exploration, basketball, and the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti, T. E. Lawrence, and Ernest Shackleton. His play, The Reckoning: Pecora for the Public, on the causes of the 1929 stock market crash, premiered in Seattle (2016). His podcast, Downfall, a series on Giamatti, Pete Rose, and the fate of Baseball, premiered in 2021. He chaired New Haven’s yearlong commemoration of the seventy­fifth anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti (2002) and co­wrote the book, with director Tony Giordano, for the adapted musical, The American Dream, which was performed at the Shubert Theatre in 2002. Neil is a member of the Dramatist Guild and also served on two New Haven theater boards, Long Wharf and the Shubert. He served on the board of the Franklin and Elea­ nor Roosevelt Institute, represented Protect Historic America pro bono in its successful effort to stop a Disney theme park in Northern Virginia, and is a Fellow in the Royal Geographical Society.

Neil graduated from Southern Connecticut State University and received his master’s degree from the Elliott School of International Relations at the George Washington University (GWU). He went on to receive his law de­gree at GWU. As a law student, he chaired Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures (SCRAP), which successfully sued the United States in a case that reached the Supreme Court. Aspects of his life’s work and experience are held in collections at GWU, the University of Hawaii Law School, and Southern Connecticut State University. Neil, born in New Haven, Connecti­cut, resides in Washington, D.C.

Customer reviews

5 out of 5 stars
5 out of 5
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Top reviews from the United States

C. Tilson
5.0 out of 5 stars A MUST Read- compelling, important, and especially relevant today
Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2013
Verified Purchase
"Providing definition and crafting arguments for controversy that leads to the Supreme Court of the United States is a special experience in law. It is uniquely so for a law student."
Neil Thomas Proto, from the prologue of To a High Court: the Tumult and Choices That Led to United States of America v. SCRAP

Everyone loves a David meets Goliath story, in which the underdog prevails in the end. To a High Court delivers us back to 1971 - the United States is embroiled in swirling political and social unrest, at the precipice of significant societal revolution, where fixed traditions clash with future transitions on many stormy fronts. With understated humility, and perfectly modulated prose, Neil Thomas Proto recounts the eight months, in which he and four other smart, brash, George Washington University second year law students, parlay a class group assignment into a controversial paradigm shift in which consumer, environmental, and public health protection takes precedence before established corporate comfort and profit. This inexperienced troupe, calling themselves SCRAP for Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures, argued their case to the halls of the US Supreme Court, and despite all odds, prevailed.

Proto, age 25, recalling his first peek inside the US Supreme Court Chambers:
"It is here that neither money nor power determines what is right under the law. It is the one thought I keep firmly in place all day."
Indeed! I have to wonder if five young law students today could sustain such unbridled confidence in the current High Court, or what their expectations are for the question posed to us by this compelling book - What is the duty of government- and that includes the judiciary, and who advocates and protects the public interest?

I am not an attorney, simply a concerned, politically engaged citizen, living in another time in which our entire system of democratic ideals hangs in the balance. It seems clear that Neil Proto's book, perhaps as a movie as I have seen suggested, has potential to inspire another generation of those possessing youthful idealism, and perhaps even my contemporaries, if they are able to summon the courage to return to that mindset, during that compelling era we shared, in which this important documentary is set.
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Klasse
5.0 out of 5 stars This David v Goliath legal drama would make a great movie
Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2013
Verified Purchase
Mr Proto starts with the dramatic scene in the Supreme Court when their incredible case challenging the powers to be (the Railroads and ICC) will be heard. He then goes back to how the SCRAP project started as a project rquired for one of their legal courses at Georgetown University and how this student project by 5 law students led to the Supreme Court case, illustrating the incredible power and fairness of the American legal system if you push the right buttons as these law students did. A fascinating detective/legal drama that has helped the recycle products (like scrap metal), and thus the environment, compete more effectively with raw material products (like iron ore/steel).

I can easily see this book being made into a movie with the right script writer, director and actors.
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S Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars An exquisitely written, engaging story
Reviewed in the United States on May 16, 2023
This is an exquisitely written, engaging story that, if you looked only at the front cover and words of the Solicitor General of the United States, Erwin Griswold, on the back cover, you’d wonder if it is fiction. Five law students — under the acronym SCRAP—taking on the nation’s railroads and old-line elite law firms and the United States over almost eight months of intense battle before a major agency of government and in the media and then, with confidently deployed skill and knowledgeably exercised irreverence sue them all and change the critical law of “standing to sue” in the Supreme Court of the Untied States: that is, who gets to have their claims heard in a court of law. The adults are humiliated. A critical environmental problem is elevated in the public and government consciousness. Yet that is precisely what happened. Between 1971 and 1973.

The engaging part is the way Proto describes the setting, the tumult of an era, the daily choices —other courses, exams, relationships, parents, the tumult of the demonstrations that effect Proto and one of his colleagues especially — that they all make in their lives as full time law students and the wonderfully realistic cadence of the dialogue taken from notes and recollections. I am a lawyer. To A High Court is readily accessible, and should be welcomed by a broad audience of readers. I recommend it highly. Including for law students in need of independently exercising their own skills and values.
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