Since Donald Trump’s inauguration in 2017, his administration has made major changes to the federal judiciary. This includes filling two Supreme Court seats along with a total of 146 confirmed Article III (federal district, appellate, Supreme Courts, and the court of international trade) judges. Democrats saw their last Supreme Court nominee, Merrick Garland, fade away…
Tag: Donald Verrilli
The “Right” Stuff
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…
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…
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…
Supreme Court Movers and Shakers (Attorneys and Justices)
The consequences of certain decisions have repercussions far beyond those that affect the immediate cases. While this is an indisputable aspect of decisions from courts of last resort, prognosticating the potential consequences of decisions is an art fraught with questionable inferences. In a series of decisions the Supreme Court has a substantial policy impact. These…
A Dearth of Female Attorneys at Supreme Court Oral Arguments
Female attorneys have a long history arguing before the Supreme Court dating back to Belva Lockwood’s argument in 1880. While Lockwood’s argument helped proverbially break the glass ceiling for women to practice before the Supreme Court, such opportunities have proven difficult to come by as female attorneys only make up a small fraction of the…
Attorneys in the Clutch
Earlier this year I ran a blog post on the most powerful justices across time, which focused on their decisions in cases with single vote margin majorities. That post accounted for the decision makers, but it did not consider the attorneys whose arguments factor into the justices’ decision calculi. This post takes a look at…
The Justices’ Stances in United States v. Texas
The United States government represented by the Solicitor General is the most frequent party before the U.S. Supreme Court. These regular appearances will be quite pronounced over the next two weeks. The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in ten more cases before the end of the Term, and a representative from the Office of the Solicitor…
A Busy Year at the OSG
The United States Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) within the U.S. Department of Justice has its hands full with Supreme Court litigation. Granted, “busy” is a relative term as the OSG has had fewer Supreme Court filings this Term than it has since 2010 (which will almost assuredly still be the case at the end…
The Regulars: Supreme Court Litigation 2015-2016
Since 2001 the Supreme Court has written full opinions in 67-75 orally argued cases per Term. We are certain not to see more than 75 this Term and nowhere near the 151 such cases in the 1982 and 1983 Terms, which were high points for the second half of the 20th century. With fewer cases,…
Analysis of the Zubik Arguments
What was said over the course of the 90 minute the oral arguments today in Zubik? Quite a bit. Commentators seem to think the Justices may split their votes four to four (e.g. Adam Liptak from the New York Times) with the Justices predominately to the right: Kennedy, Alito, Thomas, and Roberts voting that the…
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