Month: January 2017

Bringing Cases in an Unusual Term: Top Petitioners and Cert Amici

There are certain criteria that indicate or signal the importance of a Supreme Court petition to the Court –experienced SCOTUS counsel on the cert briefs, federal governmental involvement, and cert stage amicus briefs – just to name a few.  Although there is no surefire way to predict whether the Court will grant cert in a…

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Supreme Court Review of The Short-Listers’ Decisions

With one day until his inauguration, President Elect Trump has yet to nominate a candidate for the vacant seat on the Supreme Court.  While he initially released a list of twenty-one possible candidates for the vacancy, CBS’ Jan Crawford reports that the list of candidates may be furthered narrowed to five – including 11th Circuit Judge…

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The Most Important Cases Already Argued This Term in SCOTUS

Over the last few years the Supreme Court has heard multiple landmark cases.    The issues in these cases ranged from abortion to marriage equality and from affirmative action in schools to national healthcare.  So far this Term the Court has not heard cases of the same magnitude.  While cases like Beckles v. United States may…

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Cert Analytics

The Supreme Court currently grants around eighty cases per year for its merits review.  These cases tackle issues that often divide federal courts.  The Court takes up some cases due to the national importance of resolving certain issues.  With some of these cases that deal with issues that divide segments of the populations like abortion…

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Amicus Oral Argument Participation Over Time

Amici regularly participate in Supreme Court oral arguments.  Recently these appearances have been dominated by attorneys from the United States Office of the Solicitor General (OSG). While OSG attorneys have historically argued more cases as amici than other attorneys, there is much less diversity in the last decade.  In fact, the bulk of non-OSG amici…

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