#carter phillips

Cases that present questions related to Constitutional Amendments are some of the most important in the Supreme Court's docket. This post examines the types of questions these cases present, the case areas, and who argues them.

The Constitution as originally drafted excluded certain rights. These rights were were instead later added as amendments to the Constitution in the form of the Bill of Rights. Commentary leading up to the establishment of a Constitution found in the Federalist Papers discusses the importance of amendments and the process by which they might be established. In Federalist Paper #85, Alexander…

In recent years the Court has heard many cases that started out as class actions. This post dissects these cases looking at who is involved, how, and why these cases are important to the Court's docket

Supreme Court decisions tend to impact more than just the individuals named in a lawsuit.  Supreme Court Rule 10, the one official written description of factors that may lead to a higher likelihood of a cert grant focuses primarily on areas with inconsistent court decisions across the country. One of the rationales behind this disparate impact theory is to assure that the Court’s decision has…

Cases from the Federal Circuit have taken on an increased importance in modern Supreme Court practice. Here is an analysis of how and why.

This term the Supreme Court will hear arguments in its 100th case decided below by the Federal Circuit. The Court’s recent grant of the case Kisor v. Wilkie for argument also marks the fourth case granted from the Federal Circuit this term. This is by no means a small fraction of the Court’s total caseload. In terms of federal courts of appeals, the Supreme Court has only granted more casesthis…

When Opposites Attract Ideology Falls to the Wayside

Lots of noise is made about partisan and ideological divides on the Supreme Court.  There tends to be less hubbub surrounding instances when justices that traditionally divide ideologically, vote together. Such surprising coalitions formed in the majority and dissent for the Court’s decision in last week’s Patchak v. Zinke ruling.  Although this decision was met with only limited fanfare…

Attorneys in the Clutch

Earlier this year I ran a blog post on the most powerful justices across time, which focused on their decisions in cases with single vote margin majorities.  That post accounted for the decision makers, but it did not consider the attorneys whose arguments factor into the justices’ decision calculi.  This post takes a look at those attorneys by focusing on all single vote margin decisions during…

In Octobers since '13, 4 of the top 5 cases with the most amicus briefs will be argued in '17

On October 2nd, the Supreme Court will be back in session with the first oral arguments of 2017.  Since Justice Scalia passed away in February 2016 the justices have taken a light caseload and generally have not heard cases that would lead to great rifts among themselves.  This non-divisive set of cases during the 2016 term mixed with the justices’ self-declared effort to work togetherled to…

A Changing of the Guard? (Probably Not But the Evidence is Mixed)

In an article I wrote last year I found several Supreme Court repeat players were much more successful than others in getting the Supreme Court to hear their cases.

Many of these “Elite Cert Attorneys” argue multiple cases each term before the justices.  They all have high exposure to all aspects of Supreme Court process and procedure.  The time span of the article was through the beginning of…