Supreme Court

Biden vaccine policies face Supreme Court test amid nationwide COVID-19 surge

Biden vaccine policies face Supreme Court test amid nationwide COVID-19 surge

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With over 100,000 Americans hospitalized for COVID-19 as a result of the highly contagious Omicron variant, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument Friday in two sets of challenges to the Biden administration’s authority to take action to combat the pandemic. In the first case, National Federation of Independent Business v. Department of Labor, the justices will consider the Biden administration’s attempt to impose a vaccine-or-test mandate for workers at large employers. In the second case, Biden v. … Read the rest

Supreme Court

The statistics of relists over the past five terms: The more things change, the more they stay the same

The statistics of relists over the past five terms: The more things change, the more they stay the same

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Regular readers of SCOTUSblog know that in addition to flyspecking the Supreme Court’s docket most weeks to identify cert petitions that the justices are considering repeatedly at consecutive conferences (a practice called “relisting” cases), we periodically crunch the numbers to determine what relisting portends about what the court is likely to do with those cases it has relisted. Relists are a hint that at least some justices want to take a closer look at a case, which is often … Read the rest

Civil Law

New Year, New You? Lessons for the Beleaguered Legal Professional

Here we are, another year.

Do you feel differently? Fresher? Begun again?

2021 was a challenging year for me, and for a lot of people. I lost my dog, who was my heart, after a long and challenging illness that meant we didn’t sleep a lot. My best friend was diagnosed with breast cancer at 36, which means I don’t sleep a lot. There is still a pandemic. I had some chest pains (which, fortunately, turned out to be anxiety … Read the rest

Supreme Court

Roberts to Congress on court reforms: We’re on it

Roberts to Congress on court reforms: We’re on it

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Chief Justice John Roberts began his 2021 year-end report, as he so often does, with an anecdote from history to set the stage. But by the end of the first page, the message of Roberts’ report, which he released as usual on the final day of the year, was clear. In a year when a presidential commission studied Supreme Court reform and members of Congress introduced major legislation to revamp aspects of the federal judiciary, Roberts argued that any … Read the rest

Civil Law

Recent OOR Determination Clarifies Appeal Deadline

In the recent OOR determination in the matter of Zaid v. Upland Borough, OOR Dkt. AP 2021-2961 (Dec. 29, 2021), an appeal was rejected as premature in light of not taking into account the days that the government agency was closed due to the Christmas holiday. Thus, the agency’s 5-day period to respond had not expired at the time of the appeal. But the decision allowed for a new appeal to be filed at the appropriate time.

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Supreme Court

The lives they lived and the court they shaped: Remembering those we lost in 2021

The lives they lived and the court they shaped: Remembering those we lost in 2021

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The first Black woman to clerk on the Supreme Court. Two trailblazing civil-rights litigators. The unofficial barber of the justices. The woman who argued Roe v. Wade just a few years out of law school.

These were among the lives lost in 2021.

As we did last year, SCOTUSblog looks back and remembers some of the people who died this year and whose lives and work brought them to the highest court in the nation. Some were lawyers. Some … Read the rest