Okay, so we're recording this on Monday at 11.45 a.m.

we're meeting as a sort of special session.

So what do you want to talk about today?

We're going to talk about legal procedure.

I know that sounds really boring. But I've learned not from you. It won't be boring from you. But I promise. I'm going to show you why it's actually pretty interesting and maybe sometimes just as important or even more important than the right stuff that we talk about.

Okay?

So when we think about the US Supreme Court and when it decides important or in particularly controversial issues, what we're talking about is what's called its merits docket.

Docket just means its list of legal proceedings. So every year, literally

thousands of people who have lost their legal case ask the Supreme Court to hear their case.

You know, what's happened here is that somebody has lost a case, could be civil or criminal,

and the case started at state court or federal court, and then went up to an appeals court and then sometimes even to a state Supreme Court.

And so by the time a losing party says, hey, Supreme Court, please hear my case, a lot of courts have already

weighed it. They've already said, you know, we've decided against you or

maybe at some level they said they've decided for you, but at any point,

by the time you get to the Supreme Court, you're usually a loser. You want someone to hear your case one last time.

Of those thousands of cases the Supreme Court decides to hear about 60 to 70 a year, so not that many.

And when it comes to those kinds of cases,

whether we're talking about individual rights

or the power of the federal government to make laws,

the Supreme Court has the two sides submit usually two rounds of legal briefs.

These are written arguments about why they should win, and then there's an oral argument that's

scheduled months in advance.

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