Over at SCOTUSBlog, Tom Goldstein had an excellent post Tuesday about the state of the Supreme Court's plenary docket for October Term 2007. There is now a 25-case shortfall for the fall, and it looks like it will be really difficult, perhaps impossible, for the Court to fill that shortfall between now and the summer recess. In a separate post at SCOTUSBlog, I discuss at length a 2004 article by Peggy and Richard Cordray, 36 Ariz. St. L.J. 183 (2004), that studies the seasonality of the Court's selection of plenary cases and examines some of the trends that occur when the Court is trying desperately to fill its docket. Among other things, these historical trends suggest that we will see a lot of grants between now and the end of the Term as the Court feels pressure to fill the October, November, and December argument calendars. We will also probably see a ton of grants, just like this Term, around November, December, and January as the Court attempts to fill the remaining slots during the Spring.
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