by Jordan Lorence, Senior Counsel • 4 minutes
Early in the Supreme Court’s new term, this is already shaping up to be a significant year for First Liberty Institute. The justices have already granted review in two FLI cases: International Partners for Ethical Care v. Ferguson, involving a challenge to a Washington state law limiting parents’ access to information about their children who run away seeking gender “change” treatment, and Missionaries of Saint John the Baptist v. Frederic, asking whether Kentucky courts misapplied a federal religious liberty law to allow local residents to prohibit a Catholic church from building a shrine on its own property. Let’s pull back the thick burgundy curtains of the Supreme Court to see how it operates.
The Supreme Court term begins on the first Monday of October.
The Supreme Court’s annual term begins the first Monday in October. The opening ceremonies are followed by the first oral argument. This year, the nine justices began by hearing Suncor Energy v. City of Boulder, Colorado, about whether federal law or the U.S. Constitution prohibit local governments or states from suing oil companies under state tort laws for the interstate and international effects of global warming. The justices will hear oral arguments from October through the end of April 2027. They will announce decisions in all the cases they hear by the end of June 2027.
When will the Supreme Court hear oral arguments in FLI’s two cases?
The Supreme Court will hear oral argument in IPEC v. Ferguson on Monday, Dec. 7. The Supreme Court has not yet set an oral argument date for Missionaries of St. John the Baptist, but it will likely be in mid-January 2027. You can listen to the oral arguments live starting at 10:00 am Eastern Time on the Supreme Court website, supremecourt.gov.
The Supreme Court will likely hear about 65 cases this term.
The Supreme Court receives about 5000-7000 cases a year seeking review. In the 2025 term which just ended, the Supreme Court granted review in 74 cases, heard oral arguments in 58, and issued 67 opinions. That means the Supreme Court took about 1% of the cases requesting review. The fact that the Supreme Court has already granted review in two First Liberty cases this term, with more pending FLI cases it could take, is a significant achievement, and only possible with God’s favor.
Attorneys prepare for oral arguments by lots of study and “moot courts.”
The attorneys who will argue the cases before the justices spend many hours studying the briefs, poring over the evidence in the record and doing practice oral argument rounds with attorneys who play the roles of the justices and pepper them with questions. These moot courts help the oral advocate identify difficult questions the justices might ask and help the attorney craft solid answers in response. The actual oral argument will last anywhere from 1½ to 3 hours, depending on how many questions the justices ask. During COVID, the Supreme Court developed a new, longer procedure for conducting oral arguments to ensure that each of the nine justices gets to ask all of the questions he or she wants.
After the oral arguments, the justices vote on the case in a private conference.
A few days after the oral arguments, the nine justices meet in a private conference with no other people present to decide each case they have recently heard. The Chief Justice votes first, and the other eight then vote in descending seniority (most senior justice to least senior justice). If the Chief Justice is in the majority, he determines who will write the majority opinion, and he could select himself. If the Chief Justice is not in the majority, the most senior justice in the majority assigns the majority opinion.
The justices then spend several months working on their opinions.
The justice writing the majority opinion will take several months to circulate a draft to the other justices. If this is a case in which all nine justices agree with the result, which happens many times each year, the process moves quickly and the Court could announce an opinion as soon as one month after the oral argument in that case. If the justices are divided on how to decide the case, then the opinion writing takes longer, because the Court has to wait until justices writing concurring or dissenting opinions complete their opinions to release together with the majority opinion. That means the release of the opinion waits for the slowest writers.
We don’t know when the Supreme Court will release a particular opinion. We only know it will be before the end of June 2027.
The Court will usually say that it will have opinions to announce on a particular day, but it will not say in advance which particular decisions it will announce. The justices announce decisions in reverse seniority. That means, for example, that if the Court is announcing three decisions on a given day, the justice with the least seniority of the three reads a short summary of his or her opinion first, then the next senior justice, and the most senior justice will go last announcing a decision.
The Chief Justice, when he has an opinion to announce, always goes last as the most senior justice, even if it is his first year serving as Chief Justice. People cram into the courtroom waiting to see the announcements of opinions, because they might hear the announcement of a historic decision. If the case is important, a justice may read a summary of his or her dissenting opinion from the bench. That adds to the air of high drama when the Court announces a major decision. What we do know for sure is that the Supreme Court will issue opinions in First Liberty’s two cases before the end of June, when the justices adjourn for their summer recess.
