By Manny Marotta, FTC law clerk

Earlier this month, Fix the Court discovered a webpage (screenshot above) from Gotham Artists, a New York-based talent agency, that blared, “Hire Sonia Sotomayor,” and asserted that the Supreme Court justice could be booked for speaking engagements for a fee of $150,000 to $200,000.

While SCOTUS justices often appear at events, and though they may receive free or reimbursed transportation, lodging and meals as part of the events, they can’t under their Code of Conduct or federal law accept any speaking fees, let alone a fee equal to more than half their salary.

One could imagine that if they could, a corporation, foreign entity or political organization with a case before SCOTUS would try to curry favor with a justice by hiring them for the exorbitant amount quoted on the Gotham site — or more.

Within a day of us emailing Gotham to try to figure out if this was real, the site was removed, with a source telling us the page’s existence was a result of an error made by Gotham’s “SEO team.”

While we appreciate Gotham’s swift action in correcting their mistake, we remain concerned that the page existed at all and hope that in the future the Court will be more vigilant to ensure these types of pages don’t materialize.