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…
Tag: E. Joshua Rosenkranz
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,…
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…
SCOTUS Success 2016
Now that the Supreme Court term is over, let the scoring begin. While this post looks at the most successful firms, litigators, and groups before the Supreme Court during the 2016 term, there are several caveats to note. First, this post looks at success before the Court as measured by win counts. Second, getting to…
Easy Reading (By Supreme Court Standards)
Supreme Court briefs are team efforts usually with a main coordinating partner/attorney who is known as the “counsel of record.” Although the number of attorneys staffing briefs varies, at the Supreme Court level the number of attorneys listed on the brief is often more than five and can be upwards of ten. This does not…
Starting Lineups: SCOTUS Attorneys and Firms of Record at the Beginning of OT 2016
Oral arguments begin for the 2016 Supreme Court Term tomorrow, Tuesday October 3rd. On one hand, commentary surrounding the Term often relates to the lack of interesting cases on the Court’s docket. Much of the rationale for the current Court’s decisions is thought to stem from its depleted number of Justices. Thus while the political…
Bringing in the Big Guns
In a cautious and almost trepidatious manner the Supreme Court has slowly filled in part of its docket for the 2016 Term. The correlation between this slow-moving approach to cert and the empty seat on the Court is unmistakable. There are currently eight cases scheduled for argument in October. The Court already granted cert in…
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