Empirical SCOTUS

The justices clearly assert their uniqueness with their concurrences and as this is on display, they show how the justices may be more different than meets the eye.

We recently used Optimized Legal Audio (OLA) to try to read the tea leaves on the audio footprint of the SEC v. Jarkesy case. Here are the results.

Optimized Legal Audio is an artificial intelligence engine in its infancy that tries to hear what judges say, read the language they use, and through this to infer their relative preference for one attorney’s argument over another’s.

Just how different is the start of this term compared with past terms?

With only a few spots at this upper echelon of Supreme Court practice, how do attorneys get repeat player experience?

A matrix for scoring the justices in terms of relative power.

Ranking the current justices.

The current Supreme Court seems to not only take its cues from conservative lower court judges, but particularly from Trump’s nominees.

How does this timeframe compare with the Court’s historic opinion releases? 

Where has the Roberts Court pushed the pendulum?

Trump’s and Biden’s confirmed judges, 719 days into both presidencies.

The Court has yet to release a single slip opinion thus far in the 2022 Term.

How much does control over oral arguments matter?

A look at 33 published appeals decisions from cases where Brown Jackson was the district court judge below.

This term showcased the ideological divide between amici on the left and on the right.

A strong argument can be made that the most lasting legacy will be pushing policy in the direction of protecting conservative religious liberty interests.

Based on chief justices, the Court has heard an ever-decreasing percentage of cases filed on oral argument since 1880 except in one instance.

This analysis doesn’t measure the strength of dissents or the power of language used, but it does give a sense of what type of output to expect from the current justices.

Evaluating Roberts’ performance by comparison with the previous Chief Justice.

Examining Justice Alito's authorship of majority opinions in cases decided by a single vote where no liberal justice sat in the majority.