To celebrate Patricia Millett’s record-breaking thirty-first Supreme Court argument last week in Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians v. Patchak—the most by any woman before the Court—I have compiled a list of the top 10 female advocates with the most appearances before the Supreme Court who are currently in practice. The following chart includes a link [...]

By now, you should all know that the Supreme Court handed down their long-awaited decision in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder. In short, the Chief Justice Roberts wrote for a nearly unanimous court holding that Section 5 was bad and faced several constitutional problems, but the Court decided to give Congress [...]

Today was the final day for arguments during OT08 and the Court heard arguments in Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District No. 1 v. Holder. You can find the transcript here. The arguments made were certainly very interesting. Justice Scalia, while criticizing the near-unanimity with which Congress passed the VRA extension, made this observation: You know, [...]

I have to apologize for the lack of posts over the last few days. I’ve been working on an amicus brief in Ricci v. DeStefano and I need to submit it sooner rather than later. Regardless, the Court probably won’t be handing down any opinions until mid- to late-February. In the last three years, the [...]

The Supreme Court has long been criticized for poorly patrolling its lower courts for circuit splits. At least recently, the Supreme Court has issued relatively few summary judgements and summary reversals to clarify its recent decisions before they grow out of hand. The Court today did just that when they summarily reversed a decision of [...]

Howard Friedman reports on his blog, Religion Clause, that a cert. petition has been filed in Oliver v. Quarterman, a case revolving around whether or not a juror’s use of the bible constitutes grounds for a mistrial. Khristian Oliver claims that a juror member’s reading of the bible during a case represents an ‘external influence,’ [...]

Most terms of the Supreme Court go by without much publicity. The court usually hands down only one or two cases notable to make the front page of the times and another case or two worthy of the business section. In some terms, however, the Court accepts more than its usual load of high-profile cases [...]

The use footnotes has been a topic of quiet conversation around the judiciary for some time now. One group of Judges and practitioners (and an even larger percentage of students) find them to be burdensome and often unnecessary. Others think they serve as useful guides and make opinions more readable. Footnotes largely come in two [...]

In 1957, former-law clerk William Rehnquist wrote an exposé in US News about the role of clerks on the Supreme Court. Adam Liptak mentioned (here) the former-clerk’s article in relation to a recent study from the DePaul Law Review (here). The surge in interest over the case inspired US News to repost the article online [...]

On Monday the court denied review in Walker v. Georgia, a case revolving around the court’s proportionality standard applied to the death penalty. The court has long struggled to find an adequate means of countering racist bias within the capital system and there is little doubt that the issue will rear its ahead again in [...]