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…
Tag: Hogan Lovells
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…
Attorneys and Firms in the Supreme Court 2016
The Supreme Court wrapped up oral arguments for the 2016 term on April 26, 2017 with arguments in Sandoz Inc. v. Amgen and Maslenjak v. United States. These marked the 63rd and 64th arguments the Justices heard this term – down five from the 69 arguments the Justices heard a year prior. While the Court…
SCOTUS Scorecard Pt. 2: The Firm Side of the Story
The top Supreme Court litigators from this past Term were composed of a group of well-known names within circles that track cases moving through the Court. Examining these attorneys, however, only conveys part of the story of the actors involved in this litigation. From the perspective of the client representation there is a structure that goes…
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,…
The Last Leg of the Term
(image from loc.gov) The end of oral arguments for this Supreme Court Term is around the corner. With 21 cases left (not counting joined dockets in the same case) I compiled some stats on what is still to come. This post looks at the attorneys, firms, and parties in these 21 cases. There are two sections of…
empiricalscotus.com 