Once a brief is finalized and ready for printing, one of the final decisions is the method of mailing for the service parties and the Court. Fortunately, Supreme Court Rule 29 provides the following straightforward guidelines for ensuring your document is filed and served in a timely manner. Filing The Court follows the mailbox rule–meaning [...]
The most elemental feature of a petition for writ of certiorari is the Questions Presented page. Here the petitioner must concisely set out the basic issues at stake. Experienced Supreme Court practitioners consider a well-crafted Questions Presented to be the most critical tool for gaining cert consideration. In the words of Supreme Court scholar Stephen [...]
The Cockle Blog’s focus in recent weeks on a particular line on U.S. Supreme Court petition covers was not intended as an ongoing, multipart series, but there appear to be more nuances involved than initially apparent. A question raised when composing every petition (and subsequent brief) cover is which is the correct lower court to [...]
While most of the legal community has focused on the substance of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Foster v. Chatman, 578 U.S. ___ (May 23, 2016) (No. 14-8349) (something to do with cluttering up attorney files with notes on jury selection), the Cockle Blog is all over the Court’s procedural focus in that [...]
Pending at the U.S. Supreme Court is a “never-before-raised procedural issue,” raised at the Court’s own prompting in “a truly rare move,” that relates to a requirement that everyone filing a petition for certiorari must address every time on the cover. Every petition cover must insert a lower court’s name in the blank in the [...]
The previous parts of this look at the docket for a major regulatory case that ended with a decision upholding the government tracked the timelines and procedural stages. This final part looks a bit more closely at the several organizations and people who offered their thoughts to the Court without official invitation or direct interest [...]
Merits Stage: Once the Court granted certiorari in the consolidated cases, moving it from the petition phase to the merits phase, the Court’s focus shifted from whether to decide the dispute to how to resolve it. And that called for a whole new round of briefing from the parties and any old or new “friends.” [...]
Petition Stage: The linked regulatory cases that are the subject of this four-part look at the Supreme Court’s docket began in the typical way for any request for certiorari review, with final decisions at the top of a chain of lower courts. On May 23, 2014, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of [...]
If you follow a big U.S. Supreme Court case in the news, you see an occasional milestone – certiorari petition filed, cert. granted, oral argument, and the decision – and you hear from the lead counsel for the two sides, along with all the commentary from talking heads. If you follow it on the Court’s [...]
The first four parts of this series covered the Supreme Court appendix contents that are either required or that are too lengthy to leave in the brief. This final installment addresses a provision that allows pretty much anything, but that should be used with caution. Other Material Believed Essential. Rule 14.1(i)(vi) is the tempting catchall [...]