Jake S. Truscott and Adam Feldman have released their statistical analysis of the Supreme Court's 2025-26 term, examining voting patterns, opinion trends, and docket data compiled from the justices' decisions throughout the period.
The "Stat Pack" represents a comprehensive data review of the Supreme Court's decisional output. Feldman and Truscott, who have published this analysis in prior terms, extract metrics that reveal the Court's ideological alignment, the frequency of dissents and concurrences, opinion authorship patterns, and case categories that dominate the docket.
These statistics serve multiple purposes for legal practitioners, academics, and court observers. They document how often the justices vote together or apart, which justices author majority opinions in particular subject areas, and whether the Court's workload reflects shifts in litigation trends. The data illuminates whether specific legal fields receive disproportionate attention and whether the Court's internal dynamics have shifted.
For the 2025-26 term specifically, the analysis examines decisions released during a period when the Court's composition includes the current nine justices. Any statistical divergence from prior years reveals changing voting coalitions or shifts in how cases are assigned and decided.
Legal professionals track these statistics to understand the Court's practical direction independent of individual opinions. Counsel preparing petitions for certiorari can gauge which justices have authored opinions in their subject matter. Scholars use the data to test claims about judicial behavior and ideological voting.
The Stat Pack also captures dissent rates and identifies closely divided decisions, signaling where jurisprudence remains unsettled. High dissent numbers in particular areas suggest contentious doctrine or upcoming shifts in doctrine if the Court's composition changes.
SCOTUSblog, which hosts this analysis, serves as a primary resource for Supreme Court tracking and has become the go-to source for practitioners and observers seeking