Empirical SCOTUS

A tariff case that complicates the usual shorthand The Supreme Court’s tariff decision in Learning Resources v. Trump offers a useful opening window into the Court’s oral-argument term. The case had all the markers of a major separation-of-powers dispute: presidential emergency authority, economic policy, foreign affairs, Congress’s tariff power, and the Trump administration’s claim that IEEPA…

Sarah Sloan, a Columbia Law graduate who clerked for Justice Brett Kavanaugh, told her law school’s alumni magazine that she never thought she’d wind up at the Court until she was encouraged by professors and circuit judges who knew the path well. Her experience underscores how personal recommendations and faculty pipelines remain decisive, even in an age of formal processes and online…

In 1980, a young John Roberts began a clerkship with Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Former colleagues recalled him as “meticulous” and “brilliantly efficient,” and The New York Times later observed that Roberts “stood out for conservative rigor,” his memoranda concise, procedural, and laced with the dry wit that has since defined his judicial writing. That apprenticeship was more than a line on…

[This previously ran on Legalytics Substack] Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, once celebrated as a stalwart conservative and a crowning achievement of the Trump presidency, now finds herself under fire from the very base that championed her confirmation. Her recent vote in Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, where she sided with Chief Justice John Roberts and the…

Supreme Court oral arguments are more than just legal debates—they’re a high-stakes battleground where justices reveal their philosophies, test the strength of arguments, and sometimes, subtly try to persuade their colleagues. Among the most compelling contrasts on the bench today are Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson, two sharp legal minds who approach cases from strikingly…

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear a groundbreaking case that could pave the way for the nation’s first religious charter school. At the heart of the dispute is St. Isidore, a Catholic online school in Oklahoma, challenging a state ruling that blocked its bid to operate as a charter school, raising critical questions about the intersection of religious freedom and public education…

Last week the Supreme Court listened to arguments on the constitutionality the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, which would require TikTok to shut down unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sells it by January 19, 2025, citing national security concerns. TikTok and its users argue that the law infringes on their First Amendment rights, while the…

Getting ready for next week’s oral arguments? Here’s everything you need to know. Top line case summary: The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on January 10 in TikTok’s appeal against a federal law requiring the app to cease U.S. operations unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, divests its U.S. arm by January 19. The expedited case, fast-tracked without initial input from the Biden…

Background Perhaps more than any other Supreme Court tradition, oral arguments have gone through significant changes over the years. The Supreme Court is as old as the nation even though the first oral arguments were not held until the 1790’s. While presently it may feel like oral argument practice and procedure are relatively static. There have been many historic changes including drastically…

Overview Case description: This case concerns a Tennessee law that bans medical treatments for gender dysphoria in transgender adolescents, prohibiting them based on the minor’s sex and gender identity. The law has been challenged on the grounds that it discriminates based on sex and transgender status, and its validity is contested amid a wave of similar bans in other states, creating legal…

What is Legalytics? There are tons of talking heads that provide legal analysis. You can turn to the left, right, and center and there are pundits who speak to your political profile. Legalytics is something different. It aims to provide balanced analysis of the law but equally important is that it strives to provide a different perspective than you will find anywhere else. The legal industry…

Former President and current President Elect Donald Trump appointed 234 judges during his first term. Three of these were to the United States Supreme Court.  This is quite unique on several levels. Only two presidents, Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon, had three or more confirmed nominees since 1950 (Reagan had four in two terms, Nixon had four in one). Trump has the ability to reach and surpass…

Writing Style is clearly important to the Supreme Court Justices.  Not only are the justices cognizant of the writing styles in briefs, but they are also attuned to the writing styles of other judges and justices. Justices past and present discussed this and other matters in interviews with legal writing specialist Bryan Garner for the Scribes Journal over a decade ago. Some of the key takeaways…

For 11 years between 1994 and 2005 there was no turnover in membership on the Supreme Court. There were four changes to the Court’s composition between 2005 and 2010 and then another four changes between 2017 and 2022. Of the four newest justices on the Court, three were appointed by President Trump and one by President Biden. In the most recent Supreme Court term, Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy…

Anecdotes and research support the notion that oral arguments do not often influence case outcomes. Chief Justice John Roberts said as much in an interview with Bryan Garner for the Scribes Journal in 2010: “The oral argument is the tip of the iceberg — the most visible part of the process — but the briefs are more important.”  In fact, a series of studies including my own work points to the…

Between the 2004 and 2019 Supreme Court Terms, Justice Thomas spoke in five oral arguments for a total of fewer than 200 words. In that window of time he chose not to speak in over 1,100 arguments.  In that same timeframe, Justice Breyer spoke over 320,000 words at oral argument.  During those same years, Justice Thomas authored a combined 417 majority and separate opinions compared with Justice…

A Sunday morning article in the New York Times begins, “Last February, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. sent his eight Supreme Court colleagues a confidential memo that radiated frustration and certainty [referring to the D.C. Circuit’s decision in the Donald Trump immunity case].”  The article continues describing Roberts’ Feb. 22nd memo to the justices, “He wrote not only that the Supreme…