Predicting Supreme Court Certiorari Grants: A Data-Driven Approach to Understanding the Court’s Mysterious Selection Process
A look at petitions currently pending before the Court in an effort to locate the needles in the haystack
The Supreme Court’s certiorari (cert) process remains one of the most mysterious aspects of American jurisprudence. Each Term, the Court receives thousands of petitions for review but grants plenary review in fewer than 100 cases—a grant rate hovering around 1% for all petitions and 3-5% for paid petitions. For decades, lawyers, scholars, and Supreme Court watchers have attempted to decode the patterns behind these decisions, seeking to understand why the Court agrees to hear some cases while denying thousands of others.
Recent empirical analysis has shed new light on this secretive process. The patterns revealed through systematic data collection show that certain factors consistently predict whether a petition will be granted. While the Court rarely explains its cert decisions, the data speaks clearly: relists correlate with higher grant rates, specialist attorneys dramatically increase odds of success, and amicus briefs signal case importance to the Justices. Understanding these patterns matters not just for academic interest, but for practitioners seeking to maximize their chances of obtaining Supreme Court review—or, conversely, for respondents hoping to keep cases out of the Court.
This article builds on prior empirical research to present a comprehensive predictive model for certiorari grants, examining currently pending paid petitions through the lens of factors that research has identified as most strongly correlated with the Court’s decision to grant review. It then reviews the top pending petitions according to this model.
The Cert Process: A Brief Overview
Before examining the factors that predict cert grants, it’s important to understand the mechanics of the process. When a petition for certiorari is filed, the respondent has thirty days to file a brief in opposition (though many choose to waive this right and wait to see if the Court requests a response). If a respondent waives, the Court may issue a “call for response” (CFR) if one or more Justices believes the case warrants closer examination.
The petition is distributed to all nine chambers. The majority of the Justices participate in the “cert pool,” where one clerk prepares a memorandum evaluating the petition for all participating chambers. Justice Stevens historically stayed outside the pool, having his own clerks independently review petitions. The Justices meet in conference to decide whether to grant review, with four votes required under the “Rule of Four.”
Several tools help the Justices gather information. Beyond the CFR, the Court occasionally invites the Solicitor General to file a brief expressing the views of the United States—known as a “call for the views of the Solicitor General” or CVSG. These invitations are rare but highly significant predictors of eventual grant.
Insights From Prior Research
The SCOTUSblog Analysis
My August 2025 analysis on SCOTUSblog examined cert-stage dynamics using data from 2017-2024, revealing several important patterns. The baseline grant rate for paid petitions averaged around 4-5%, though it varied by year—dropping to 3.5% in 2021 but exceeding 5% in both 2019 and 2024.