With a Little Help from Academic Scholarship

Judges’ citations tell a lot about their dispositions. We can glean relationships between cases, judges’ perspectives on these cases, and judges’ relationships with other judges based on case citations. For this reason, empirical scholars have spent much time and energy analyzing judges’ citation patterns.  A slew of Supreme Court researchers have written fascinating pieces about…

State Fault Lines That Might Lead to Big Cases Before the Supreme Court

The Court currently has 43 arguments scheduled for this term.  For the most part, these cases will go under the radar. Even cases with large sets of amicus briefs, usually a good sign of generalized interest in cases, do not contain the same blockbuster quality as cases in recent terms.  For example, amici filed nearly…

What to Expect From Kavanaugh’s 1st Term

The tense waiting is now over as Justice Kavanaugh was confirmed to the Supreme Court on October 6th 2018.  One of the big stories following Kavanaugh though is his low rate of public approval.  This low rate of approval was apparent soon after Kavanaugh was nominated.  Not only this, but as the figure below shows, Kavanaugh was…

The Wide Arc of the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court now hears around 70 arguments a term and each case tends to have issues unique from others on the Court’s docket.  After the Court’s merits docket is assembled each term though, similarities between cases become apparent and these similarities may present an area of law where the Court is more invested and…