There are a whole lot of strongly held beliefs about how the Supreme Court votes. Many of these involve the court’s perceived ideological divide: there are six republican-appointed justices and three democratic-appointed justices. So, as the narrative goes, you get a whole lot of 6-3 decisions split along those lines. […]

Ninety-one years ago, when the Supreme Court held in Humphrey’s Executor v. United States that Congress could make agencies like the Federal Trade Commission “independent” from total presidential control, many were shocked – including President Franklin Roosevelt himself. FDR was “outraged by the Humphrey ruling,” one historian recounted, because not […]

The Stat Pack is here! Jake S. Truscott and Adam Feldman crunched the numbers from the 2025-26 term and pulled together key takeaways. Scroll to the On Site section to learn more. Plus, do you know an exceptional lawyer looking for something different? We’re hiring to help build a new […]

First: Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion for the court in the landmark Trump v. Barbara decision yesterday reached the right result – a complete repudiation of President Donald Trump’s lawless executive order 14160 seeking to end birthright citizenship. Hurrah! Second: the court based its ruling on the right document […]

The Supreme Court’s decision in CISCO Systems, Inc. v. Doe, announced on June 23, was not only, as expected, good news for corporations that facilitate government violations of international human rights. It was also an unexpected boon for government officials who do so as well. Courtesy of the court’s ruling, […]

It was a busy Tuesday at the court as the justices released the final opinions in argued cases for the 2025-26 term and then orders from their Monday conference. Let’s get to it. But first, do you know an exceptional lawyer looking for something different? We’re hiring to help build […]

Unknown block type “pdfEmbed”, specify a component for it in the `components.types` option The final stretch of the 2025-26 Supreme Court term looked different from the end of recent ones. Over the past several years, many of the court’s most anticipated decisions have ended with the familiar 6-3 ideological alignment: […]

When it comes to the last formal day of the term, when we know which cases are remaining, litigants and other interested parties have the chance to try to work their way into the courtroom to hear an opinion announced in a case of close interest. But most of the […]

Trump v. Barbara, the birthright-citizenship case that dominated headlines this term, was emblematic of how the court can be predictable in closely followed cases while still leaving room for surprises. Many observers, including me, expected the court to reject the Trump administration’s order ending birthright citizenship. Based on oral argument, […]

Less than a week after the Supreme Court struck down a Hawaii law that barred gun owners with concealed-carry licenses from bringing guns onto private property unless they had explicit permission from the property’s owner, the justices announced that they will weigh in on the constitutionality of bans on AR-15s […]