AI and Supreme Court Advocacy

Bloomberg Law has posted a video about whether AI (artificial intelligence) can argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. One Supreme Court advocate thinks there's a lot to be said for AI. 7min. 38 sec. Subtitles available.

Bloomberg Law has many other interesting videos on YouTube.

Trump in the Ballot?

NPR's program Consider This has an interview with University of Chicago law professor Aziz Huq about the case before the U.S. Supreme Court deciding if section three of the 14th Amendment applies to
Donald Trump. 

The case will be argued before the Court Thursday February 8. The Court has said the oral arguments will be live-streamed. 12 min. 53 sec., transcript available.

To prepare yourself for listening to the oral argument, you can see a presentation of how this one will take place as part of an article in Politico - Meet the Lawyers Arguing the Trump Ballot Case...(the second video).

 The First Monday in October....

The first Monday in October is the beginning of the U.S. Supreme Court term. For a roundup of what's scheduled, NPR's Nina Totenberg has a report here. Her conclusion --"Hold on to your hats - it's going to be a bumpy ride." 6 min. 54 sec. transcript available.

You can now listen live to oral arguments using this link. As before, audio recordings of arguments and their transcripts are made available at the end of each week here.

Advice about Legal Writing and Oral Advocacy

Legal English in Hong Kong has produced a series of short interviews about legal writing and oral advocacy. Particularly interesting is the advice from The Honourable Chief Justice Geoffrey Ma Tao-li, current Chief Justice of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal. Part one of his advice is here, 8 min, subtitles, transcript available. Part two is here, 4 min, subtitles, transcript available. Spoiler: the short answer to the question of what makes good legal writing is brevity.

U.S. Supreme Court Justices

Before the new Court term begins on October 5, some justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are speaking in public. Justice Elena Kagan was interviewed by Martha Minow, current Dean of Harvard Law School (Kagan is a former dean of the school). Justice Kagan speaks of her experience as Solicitor General of the United States, the position she had before joining the Court, and of course about her new position. Her comments about how she writes her opinions and who she sees her audiences to be are especially interesting. 55 min, no transcript.
Justice Stephen Breyer has written a new book, The Court and the World. He spoke recently about it at the National Constitution Center. 1h 2 min, no transcript.

Supreme Courts

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem has posted a conversation on youtube with three present or former members of three different Supreme Courts: of Israel (Justice Dorit Beinish), Canada (Justice Rosalie Silberman Abella) and the United States (Justice Elena Kagan). 1 hour 26 minutes, no transcript.

U.K. Supreme Court Now Offers Video on Demand

The U.K. Supreme Court has had a live streaming service for some time which enables those interested to see what’s happening while it happens. But if you missed the « live » moment, it was gone. The court announced May 5 that it is now providing video on demand, available for approximately one year, for past hearings and judgments delivered. For copyright reasons, downloading the footage for longterm storage or editing is not allowed.

More on Same-Sex Marriage and the U.S. Supreme Court

In this week's episode of Amicus, Slate's Dahlia Lithwick interviews one of the lawyers who argued last month before the U.S. Supreme Court against same-sex bans on marriage in Obergefell v. Hodges. The lawyer, Douglas Hallward-Driemeier, explains some of the reasoning on both sides of the legal issues. You can also hear bits of the actual oral arguments. 35 min., no transcript.
36 minutes of excerpts ("super-cuts") from the two-and-a-half hour oral arguments can be found here, on SCOTUSblog. You can hear the full recording of the arguments here on the official Supreme Court site which also has the transcript available.

King v. Burwell and the Affordable Care Act before the U.S. Supreme Court

Oral arguments in the case of King v. Burwell are available here. This case involves an attack on the Affordable Care Act based on a very technical question of statutory interpretation. Listening to this you will see the how the members of the Court and the lawyers for the parties interact. You’ll hear lots of counterfactuals and laughter too. 1h 25 min. Transcript available.
More information on the case from Nina Totenberg on NPR can be found here. 4 min 49 sec.

Interview with Slate's Dahlia Lithwick

SCOTUSblog has posted an interview with Dahlia Lithwick about the U.S. Supreme Court and her coverage of the Court for Slate, the online magazine. She talks extensively about why there is no TV coverage of oral arguments. Lithwick has begun her own podcast, Amicus, on Slate. 1h 09 min, no transcript available.

U.S. Supreme Court Arguments Presented with a Different Take

VERY funny but almost impossible to describe - real audio footage of U.S. Supreme Court arguments but with animals taking the parts of the justices done on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. The original Oliver piece is here. 5 min 40 sec. Oliver promised to make available the videos of the animals so others could do the same thing, and they have. You can find many on YouTube under realanimalsfakepaws. For instance, someone has done the full arguments in the Hobby Lobby case.

Scotusblog Interviews with Orin Kerr

SCOTUSblog is posting a series of five interviews with Orin Kerr, a young professor at Washington University Law School who is an expert in computer crime law. In part three, Kerr discusses oral argument : the interaction between lawyers and justices, how lawyers prepare for them, how legal academics influence the Court through Supreme Court clinics in law schools, through amicus briefs, or legal blogs. 10 min, no transcript. 
In part four, Kerr discusses what he thinks the background Supreme Court Justices should have, whether we should view the Court through a political lens, and does the Court reflect public opinion, 20 min, no transcript

Advice from Justice Elena Kagan

Justice Elena Kagan of the U.S. Supreme Court spoke at Georgetown University Law Center, answering questions from its dean about her career in the law. Her remarks from when she was dean of Harvard Law School are particularly interesting for law students. She also goes into some detail about how she writes her opinions at the Supreme Court, how she uses her law clerks, and the role of oral argument. 1 h, no transcript

Justice Elena Kagan

Justice Elena Kagan of the U.S. Supreme Court was interviewed by Martha Minow, dean of the Harvard Law School in September. Kagan, a former dean at Harvard herself, spoke very frankly about her new job as a justice. Very interesting for SCOTUS fans. You will find the video here. 1h 18 min, no transcript.

SCOTUSblog

C-Span's Q and A program has an interview with SCOTUSblog co-founder Tom Goldstein about the Court - how cases are chosen, argued, decided and how all this is reported to the public. It includes clips from some funny videos Goldstein has posted on YouTube. Definitely for U.S. Supreme Court groupies. 59 min, transcript available.

Conversation with Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan

Justice Elena Kagan, the newest and youngest associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, answered questions this week at the University of Richmond Law School about oral arguments, how the Court decides cases, the role of clerks, how she writes opinions, the blogs she reads and much more. Very interesting.
58 min, no transcript

The Solicitor General of the United States

NPR's All Things Considered last week had profiles of the two lawyers who will be most prominent in the three days of oral arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court concerning the Affordable Care Act. Arguing for the government in defense of the act will be the Solicitor General Donald Verrilli. 8 min 58 sec. The task of the Office of the Solicitor General is to supervise and conduct government litigation in the United States Supreme Court. The S.G. is not to be confused with the Attorney General, currently Eric Holder, who is head of the Department of Justice. Arguing that the act is unconstitutional will be a former Solicitor General, Paul Clement, now in private practice. 8 min 51 sec
Both programs can be heard in streaming or .mp3, transcripts available.

U.S. Supreme Court on C-Span

Next week the U.S. Supreme Court begins its new term. C-Span, the U.S. public service cable channel, is planning a special week of programs about the Court.

C-Span Classroom has prepared some teaching resources for U.S. highschoolers. This page also has links to video clips taken from the week's programs:

* Creating Independent Federal Courts

* The Supreme Court As A Human Institution

* Marbury v. Madison and Judicial Review

* “Equal Justice Under Law”

* The Opinion Writing Process

* Being a Chief Justice

* Past Chief Justices

* Granting Certiorari

* Preparing for Oral Arguments

* The Intimacy of the Supreme Court

* Explaining Oral Arguments

* After Hearing Oral Arguments

* Reporting Decisions

* Adding a New Member to the Court

* The Supreme Court’s Building History

* History’s Influence on the Court

These clips are from 1:30 min. to 6:45 min. long, no script, RealPlayer, WMP.

U.S. - The First Amendment, Religious Monuments and Public Parks The Summum sect in Utah believes it should be able to put up a monument in a park to the seven basic aphorisms of its philosophy — just as there's a monument to the Ten Commandments. Its members have taken their case to the Supreme Court. The NPR report, by Nina Totenberg, contains good examples of the hypothetical questions typically asked by the Justices during oral arguments. 5 min. with a text that is almost a transcript You can find out what the Seven Aphorisms are by listening here.

Justice Scalia on the art of persuasion Supreme Court groupies will be glad to know that Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the U.S. Supreme Court has given a lengthy interview in which he talks about his new book, Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges, which he wrote with Bryan Garner. The program, aired May 4, 2008, can be found here. 60 min. transcript available here.