Steven Michel canceled a five-week vacation to Nepal because he had to meet a court deadline.

The New Mexico lawyer has taken time off of work, importuned family members and spent thousands of dollars of his own money because he really believed and still believes that Merrick Garland should get a Senate vote on his long-pending Supreme Court nomination.

Michels gamble: that the court system may be the only avenue left to do something about getting President Barack Obama s nominee seated on the high court. Last week, Obama himself seemed resigned to the idea that Garland will never get the job .

I have an interest in seeing the government work well, Michel, a longtime environmental lawyer , told The Huffington Post.

In August, he took a trip to Washington, D.C. There, acting as his own attorney, he filed a lawsuit in federal court against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) to try to accomplish just that. Neither man has lifted a finger since Obama named Garland to fill the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia , who died in February.