Can Structural Changes Fix the Supreme Court?

Supreme Court

Th ere is no doubt that the U.S. Supreme Court has in-fl uenced the politics of the country. As a public body, the Court is a highly visible part of the federal government. Th is has always been so, even when the justices met briefl y twice a year in the drafty basement of the Capitol. Yet the idea that the Court itself is a political institution is controversial. Th e justices themselves have ...

Schooling the Supreme Court

Supreme Court Justices' uniform professional backgrounds have drawn increasing criticism. Yet it is unclear how diverse professional training would affect the Court's decisions. This Article offers the first empirical analysis of how Justices with diverse professional training vote: It examines a unique period when Justices with formal legal education sat with Justices who entered the professio...

The Supreme Court, Roe

It is no exaggeration to say that no U.S. Supreme Court opinion has been more misunderstood and has had its arguments more misrepresented in the public square than Roe v. Wade (1973). 1 There seems to be a widespread perception that Roe was a moderate opinion that does not support abortion on demand, i.e., unrestricted abortion for all nine months for virtually any reason. Even a philosopher of...

The Court rules Supreme.

How Can the Supreme Court Not “Understand” Patent Law?

The Supreme Court does understand patent law. This invited Essay responds to Federal Circuit Judge Dyk’s remarks at the Chicago-Kent Supreme Court IP Review, in particular, his observation that the patent “bar and the academy have expressed skepticism that the Supreme Court understands patent law well enough to make the governing rules” (a view Judge Dyk did not endorse). The idea that the Supr...