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: Jenner & Block
First-Timers in the Court
In recent years, a lot has been made of the repeat players before the U.S. Supreme Court – and rightfully so. They are involved in many high profile cases the justices hear, several have prior governmental experience…and they win. These attorneys include past-SG’s Seth Waxman, Ted Olson, and Paul Clement among others. An understudied but…
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…
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…
Oral Argument Winners 2015/2016
Image by: Carlos Barria/Reuters This week marks the end of the 2015 Supreme Court Term. There are a ton of data to sort through to better understand the repercussions of the cases and the actors involved. One way to analyze the data is simply by looking at the attorneys that were most successful at oral argument…
Quick Note: Foreshadowing 2015 SCOTUS Stats
In a more detailed upcoming post I will take a look at many of the significant statistics from this term at the Supreme Court; especially those to do with the actors involved in the cases. To provide some early results, in this post I have the non-governmental attorney and firm that were involved in the…
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…
Top Briefs in Friedrichs v. CA Teachers Assn.
(image from Dover Teachers’ Union) With 48 amicus curiae briefs filed at the merits phase and a total of 57 amicus briefs filed throughout the case, Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association (No. 14-915) has drawn much interest both from the public and from the policy community. It also provides the fodder I was looking for…
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