The Supreme Court's Shadow Docket: Justice Obscured

While the ideological shift brought by the Trump Supreme Court appointments is well understood, far less understood is how the Court has transformed its own procedures through the rapid expansion of the so-called “shadow docket.” Today, the Court is increasingly using this accelerated, opaque process to resolve some of the country’s most consequential and controversial cases - with only limited briefing, no oral argument, and decisions that include little or no legal reasoning. These decisions carry enormous real-world consequences: altering legal rights, setting new precedent, and impacting millions of people, all while expanding the Court’s own power. 

Earlier this year, Justice Kagan warned, “Our emergency docket should never be used, as it has been this year, to permit what our own precedent bars. Still more, it should not be used, as it also has been, to transfer government authority from Congress to the President, and thus to reshape the Nation’s separation of powers.”

Join the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law for a free CLE webinar, Shadow Docket, on Thursday, December 18th, from 1:00–2:00pm PT.  This training will explore the origins of the shadow docket, its historical use, and its rapid expansion in recent years. Attorneys will learn how to better interpret these shadow-docket decisions, evaluate their precedential value, and understand how lower courts are applying them.