These tables are derived from information contained in 266 Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions that were turned up in a Nexis Uni search for decisions filed between September 1, 1919, and August 31, 1920.  The total of 266 decisions does not include various orders pertaining to petitions, motions, and disciplinary matters involving lawyers and judges.[Continue Reading…]

The passage of three years since the last update prompts our return to the question of how frequently women have been delivering oral arguments—as representatives of the Department of Justice, the Public Defender, private firms, and all categories combined.  While the tiny number of decisions filed in recent years has yielded a correspondingly small volume of oral arguments, we can compensate by comparing data for three-term clusters to obtain reasonable sample sizes. [Continue Reading…]

These tables are derived from information contained in 250 Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions that were turned up in a Nexis Uni search for decisions filed between September 1, 1920, and August 31, 1921.  The total of 250 decisions does not include various orders pertaining to petitions, motions, and disciplinary matters involving lawyers and judges.[Continue Reading…]

Although numerous commentators have characterized the Wisconsin Supreme Court as polarized, this conclusion often seemed based on nothing more precise than acrimonious exchanges between justices or the number of 4-3 decisions filed that term.  Furthermore, “indicators” of polarization cited by observers are not weighed against the impressions left by the court in preceding decades—which makes it impossible to determine whether the court is any more polarized now than in, say, 2010 or 1970.  Today’s post addresses this by offering a means of measuring polarized voting and comparing the results over the last hundred years.[Continue Reading…]

At a time when the Wisconsin Supreme Court has been described as polarized, dysfunctional, and politicized,^[1] some commentators have noted that fully 36% of decisions were unanimous in 2024-25—consistent with levels in previous terms and a larger share, they suggest, than might have been expected in a partisan atmosphere.  Indeed, given that more decisions last term were reached unanimously than by any of the other possible vote margins, such observations on unanimity could even prompt one to question whether “polarized,” “dysfunctional,” and “politicized” are les mots juste when characterizing the court. [Continue Reading…]

These tables are derived from information contained in 285 Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions that were turned up in a Nexis Uni search for decisions filed between September 1, 1921, and August 31, 1922.  The total of 285 decisions does not include various orders pertaining to petitions, motions, and disciplinary matters involving lawyers and judges.

Also omitted are three deadlocked (3-3) cases: Kroner v. Order of United Commercial Travelers; Hahn v. Eells; and Griffin v. Milwaukee E. R. & Light Co.

When two (or more) cases were, in effect, consolidated—one was simply said to be ruled by the decision in the other—the cases are counted as only one: Evangelical Lutheran St. Paul’s Congregation v. Hass and Evangelical Lutheran St. Paul’s Congregation v. Jaeger.

Eight justices appear in a number of the tables because Justice Robert Siebecker died in February 1922 and was replaced in April by Justice Charles Crownhart.  The sources do not make it possible to determine precisely when Justice Siebecker ceased to participate in cases before his death; nor can we tell exactly when Justice Crownhart began voting in decisions filed after his appointment at the beginning of April.  The decisions name the authors of majority opinions and separate opinions, as well as the justices who joined separate opinions, but they do not list the justices who merely joined majority opinions (by far the largest category of participation).  Thus, I sometimes had to guess from fragmentary internal evidence whether a decision was, say, 6-0 or 7-0, and this should be borne in mind when viewing some of the following tables.

The tables are available as a complete set and by individual topic in the subsets listed below.

Four-to-Three Decisions
Decisions Arranged by Vote Split
Frequency of Justices in the Majority
Distribution of Opinion Authorship
Frequency of Agreement Between Pairs of Justices

I’m grateful to a reader for bringing to my attention that I mistakenly attributed a dissent in State v. Joan L. Stetzer to Justice Protasiewicz that should have been credited to Justice Karofsky.  I have corrected the four affected tables in the “Wisconsin Supreme Court Statistics, 2024-25” post and also a phrase in the “Bloc cohesion” portion of the “Some More Impressions” post.

This season featured a thrilling conclusion, with the Writs overtaking the Affirmed in the final days of competition. 

At its awards banquet earlier this week, the league honored not only the Writs but also the leading scorers from each team: Pines Bach led all firms with 34 points, followed by Stafford Rosenbaum with 21, and Troutman Pepper with 15.  For the Gavels of the State Public Defender’s Office, Christopher Sobic, Christopher August, and Olivia Garman each contributed five points.

The following table provides totals for every individual law firm.[Continue Reading…]

These tables are derived from information contained in 22 Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions filed between September 1, 2024, and the end of the court’s term in the summer of 2025.  The total of 22 decisions omits orders pertaining to various motions, petitions, and disciplinary matters involving lawyers and judges. 

Also excluded are (1) a per curiam order denying Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s request to be removed as a candidate for President on the November ballot, (2) Scot Van Oudenhoven v. Wisconsin Department of Justice (dismissed as improvidently granted), and (3) Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin v. Joel Urmanski (dismissed as moot because of the decision in Kaul v. Urmanski).

The tables are available as a complete set and by individual topic according to the subsets listed below.

Four-to-Three Decisions
Decisions Arranged by Vote Split
Frequency of Justices in the Majority
Distribution of Opinion Authorship
Frequency of Agreement Between Pairs of Justices
Average Time Between Oral Argument and Opinions Authored by Each Justice
Number of Oral Arguments Presented by Individual Firms and Agencies

One of last year’s posts could have been titled “The Rise of the Liberals,” as we examined evidence of the court’s new liberal sway shortly after years of conservative ascendancy.  Certain indications of this sea change were unprecedented, and the fact that the court’s composition has not altered suggests that similarly noteworthy features are likely to characterize our findings for 2024-25.[Continue Reading…]