Empirical SCOTUS
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Category: Attorneys/Firms
A New Term With Plenty of Hype
This is going to be a big year in front of the Supreme Court. Likely with more fireworks than the last few. Since Justice Scalia passed away during the 2015 Supreme Court Term, the Court has been in an adjustment period. There was the long stint without a ninth justice. Justice Gorsuch was finally confirmed at the tail end of the 2016 term. At the end of his first full term in 2017 Justice Kennedy announced his retirement. This past term was Kavanaugh's first term on the Court.
The Constitution as originally drafted excluded certain rights. These rights were were instead later added as amendments to the Constitution in the form of the Bill of Rights. Commentary leading up to the establishment of a Constitution found in the Federalist Papers discusses the importance of amendments and the process by which they might be…
A Class of Their Own: The Supreme Court's Recent Take on Class Actions
Supreme Court decisions tend to impact more than just the individuals named in a lawsuit. Supreme Court Rule 10, the one official written description of factors that may lead to a higher likelihood of a cert grant focuses primarily on areas with inconsistent court decisions across the country. One of the rationales behind this disparate…
What the Justices Cited in OT 2018
During the 2018 term, the Supreme Court heard 67 oral arguments leading to decisions. The justices' opinions cited briefs filed in these cases and law articles approximately 601 times. These citations were from a total of approximately 330 briefs and articles. The citations were primarily clustered in certain cases. For instance, 30 cases or about…
Advocates that Drive the Justices' Votes
Supreme Court scholars often debate the role of lawyers in Supreme Court decision making. For an attitudinalist, the justices' preferences make all (or at least most of) the difference. According to this theory justices will often vote based on their preferred policy direction, which minimizes the role of advocacy. More recent studies show that such…
Hitting the Nail on the Head: Successful Cert Stage Amicus Briefs in Cases with Financial Implications
Not surprisingly, most cases before the Supreme Court involve high stakes. The justices can assure this by taking a small and selective caseload each term. With so many potential cases petitioned to the Court on such a wide range of issues, the Court really has the pick of the litter in terms of possible cases…
Follow the Experts: Framing Petitions for Cert
What do Supreme Court experts do differently in their cert petitions? Some insights in this post
Supreme Court All-Stars 2013-2017
Success in the Supreme Court is hard to define because it can be viewed in a variety of ways. Few attorneys have the opportunity to try cases there and even fewer argue multiple cases. Part of success therefore is simply getting a case or cases to the Court. Once the Court agrees to hear a…
Attorneys and Firms for the 2017 Term
The current term at the Supreme Court has been anything but ordinary. With two argued cases already ruled moot the justices are down to 61 argued cases for possible signed decisions. This would tie last term for the fewest signed decisions in the modern Court era. Not only are the cases few and far between,…
The State of the States Before the Supreme Court
Rather than originating from a federal court of appeal like the majority of cases before the Supreme Court, the most discussed case of this term came from a state court. Masterpiece Cakeshop was petitioned to the Supreme Court after a decision from the Colorado Court of Appeals and Colorado's Solicitor General, Frederick Yarger, handled the argument for…
Not All Appeals Are Equal
Every year the lawyer research and ranking company Chambers & Partners (sometimes mentioned as C&P herein) puts out a list of top appellate lawyers and firms (in a previous post I looked at some of the listed firms' cert performance). Chambers uses a mix of qualitative and quantitative methodology to come up with its various…
BriefCatching 2017 Cert-Stage Filings
Good writing quality is one of the greatest assets for attorneys practicing before any court. While there is no universally accepted measure of good writing, software engineers are currently designing programs that measure writing quality in innovative and accurate ways. In past, Empirical SCOTUS has employed off-the-shelf metrics for writing quality to compare filings…
Amicus Brief in Google v. Oracle
How Chief Justice Roberts Articulates His Ethos Through His Year End Reports
The Beginning of the 2019 Term and How It Stacks Up
Supreme Court Justice T.V. News Coverage
The Recent Role of Separate Opinions
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