Keeping up with SCOTUS
September 15, 2020
In classes, conferences, and the pages of law reviews, experts break down recent developments of the law. This is especially true for the United States Supreme Court. Their decisions have sweeping effects, and no matter your interest area: it’s a good idea to keep yourself informed. Not only are the Court’s opinions themselves important, but also which cases they are going to hear in the future, or have denied hearing altogether. This begs the question — what are the best resources for staying up to date on the Supreme Court?
Reading regular daily news won’t get you very much information outside of nomination drama and the outcomes of the most controversial cases. Instead, it’s usually best to consult more specialty legal sites.
There isn’t a single, one-stop shop that will have everything you could want. Instead, as is often the case with finding good information, it’s best to visit multiple sources in order to give yourself as clear a picture as possible. It’s also good to keep a toolbox of resources in mind to best fit your goal. Some days you may want to do a deep dive on specific upcoming cases, while other days you may want to browse the bigger picture headlines with your morning coffee.
With that in mind, here are some of the most helpful resources for staying abreast of the comings-and-goings at the Supreme Court:
SCOTUSBlog is a great daily stop for staying informed. They publish daily roundups containing relevant news, a running list of all the cases the court is going to hear arguments on (including when they will be argued), and a list of pending petitions. They also publish the opinions for cases upon release.
For the audio inclined, they have a podcast called “SCOTUStalk.” Recent topics include an interview with an oral advocate about their experience fielding questions from Justices, recent Affordable Care Act challenges, and an end-of-term review.
Finally, SCOTUSblog has some special projects to be aware of. First, they have been collecting detailed statistic for each term. The statistics include pace of decisions, pace of granted cases, and majority opinions authored per justice. They are also currently running a “2020 Election Litigation Tracker” for the election season, which provides information on major election law cases working their way through all levels of the justice system.
Oyez, while being less helpful than SCOTUSBlog for daily news, is great for Supreme Court history, breakdowns of past cases, and information about past-and-present Justices.
The site includes a list of decided cases (that can be filtered by term, name, date, popularity, etc.) with summaries and details on how each justice voted. This includes a fun feature that sorts the Justices by ideology (presented in literal left-to-right fashion), which can give you an idea of cases that are more split along political lines. They also have detailed biographies for every single Supreme Court justice. If you ever wanted to know all about Justice William Patterson (1793-1806), this is the place for you!
Lastly, Oyez features a project called “Oral Argument 2.0.” This is a fun series where legal academics, “with the benefit of hindsight,” give answers to questions the Justices asked advocates during oral arguments. This series has featured scholars like Erwin Chemerinsky and UNC’s own Michael Gerhardt.
Bloomberg News’ “The United State Law Week” is a helpful source for all legal news. You can filter the news into Supreme Court specific pieces, or check out “Supreme Court Today,” which includes opinions related to recent orders, as well as a list of recently filed or docketed cases organized by subject area.
The Court’s official site, while less easy to navigate, is helpful if you’re looking for an official government source or specific documents. This site has all the court’s opinions, oral argument audio and transcripts, and a docket search feature.
Reuters is a good source for general news on the Supreme Court. This feed focuses on political news surrounding the Supreme Court, but can still be helpful for keeping up with major developments.
Politico, similar to Reuters, has a specific Supreme Court news feed. This—true to the name—will be more politically focused in nature. This feed will also feature the occasional opinion piece.