With the “long conference” before the beginning of the 2016 Supreme Court Term complete the Court has granted what could be the last set of cases before the Justices start hearing oral arguments next Tuesday (Oct. 4). The Court has two months of hearings scheduled with other cases still lacking oral argument dates. The Court’s…
Tag: Paul Clement
Cert Filing Leaders
Chambers and Partners regularly releases highly regarded law firm rankings and comparisons. One of these guides compares top appellate firms. The firms detailed in Chambers’ list are top players in the Supreme Court and employ many of the attorneys with the most extensive Supreme Court expertise. While these firms are recognized for their work in…
SCOTUS Scorecard 2015/2016 Pt. 1: Experience is Key
Now that the 2015 Supreme Court is complete, it is a perfect time to inspect the case outcomes. My previous post examined the winning attorneys from each oral argument. Many of the attorneys involved are from a small division of firms and groups focused on Supreme Court practice (or from larger firms with specialized appellate practices) and are…
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 State of the States Before the Supreme Court
The Supreme Court Justices never appeared less satisfied with responses during an oral argument this Term than they did with those in Birchfield v. North Dakota. Mark Joseph Stern described in an article for Slate, “Ever wondered what it felt like on the Titanic when that iceberg ripped the hull? The sensation, I suspect, was quite similar…
Oral Arguments OT 2015: A Look Back
On Wednesday April 29th the Supreme Court Justices heard their final oral argument of the Term with McDonnell v. United States. The Justices heard a total of 69 arguments from October 2015 through April 2016 (not accounting separately for consolidated dockets; links to all of the transcripts, audio, and information about all of the cases…
Will Grammar Rule in Encino Motorcars
The Supreme Court is integrally tied to Congress with its common function of reviewing federal statutes. Sometimes the statutes are more straightforward in their drafting while other times they are more obscure and esoteric. In last week’s oral argument in Encino Motorcars v. Navarro the Court looked at the designation “service advisors” to examine if these individuals are…
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…
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…
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…
Empirical SCOTUS 