Over the next couple of months, the CockleBur will provide a series of conversations about the law with a number of prominent legal journalists, practitioners, scholars, policy makers, and social justice advocates. I chose these particular people because I think they can bring a unique perspective about topics such as advocacy, legal [...]
Supreme Court practice has a language unto itself. One of the terms you will occasionally hear at the certiorari stage is that a petition has “vehicle problems.” Well, what does that mean? And what the heck is a vehicle? The Court doesn’t like to waste time. So when they consider granting a [...]
[This is another installment in the Matters of Practice series—designed to explain specific problems facing Supreme Court cert petitioners.] Not every granted petition for certiorari raises an issue on which the lower courts are divided; it just seems that way. While circuit conflicts are by far the most common [...]