The Supreme Court’s Biggest Arguments This Term Reveal Who is Driving the Conversation

A rundown of the numbers from Supreme Court oral arguments so far this term

So far, the Supreme Court’s oral argument calendar has had a distinctly public-facing quality. Many of the biggest arguments have involved disputes that reach well beyond the parties and into the country’s political life: redistricting in Louisiana v. Callais, presidential tariff authority in Learning Resources v. Trump, presidential removal power and the Federal Reserve in Trump v. Cook, and, soon, birthright citizenship in Trump v. Barbara, which is scheduled for argument on April 1. Even by the standards of the modern Roberts Court, that is a striking concentration of cases touching elections, executive power, and the architecture of government.

That docket has naturally drawn attention to outcomes. It also offers a useful chance to look at something more granular: the shape of oral argument itself. Which advocates are carrying the heaviest load? Which justices are speaking most often? Which cases become justice-dominated exchanges, and which leave more room for uninterrupted advocacy? And when the court hears politically salient disputes, does the structure of the argument begin to tell its own story?

This term’s arguments suggest a court whose most prominent cases are producing both high advocate speaking totals and heavy judicial engagement. A small number of repeat Supreme Court specialists appear at the center of the biggest arguments. On the bench, Justice Jackson again stands out as one of the court’s most active questioners, in a broader Court-since-Jackson pattern in which the liberal justices often account for a large share of the speaking. That pattern, though, is not absolute. Some of the most striking single-argument showings come from elsewhere on the ideological spectrum, including Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The result is a term in which oral argument data tracks the larger feel of the docket: high stakes, high intensity, and a court that knows many of its cases are being heard not only by the lawyers in the room but by the country outside it.

The advocate-side numbers make one point immediately clear. The most speech-heavy arguments are clustering around big cases and elite counsel.

The top single-argument attorney speaking total in the figures provided belongs to D. John Sauer in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, at 8,811 words. Neal Katyal appears in the same case’s broader speaking ecology, but the standout advocate total there belongs to Sauer. Just behind him is Amit Agarwal at 8,223 words in Trump, President of United States v. Slaughter. Then come Sean Harris in United States v. Hemani at 7,216 words, Paul Clement in Trump v. Cook at 7,104 words, Clement again in Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC at 6,273, and several others in the 5,800-to-6,000-word range.

Even without trying to force a grand theory from a graphic, the pattern is suggestive. The lawyers speaking the most in a single argument tend to be the advocates one would expect to find in the Supreme Court’s most charged disputes: experienced specialists, often representing institutional actors, and often arguing cases whose legal framing is broad enough to invite sustained questioning. Speaking totals are not a measure of quality by themselves. They can reflect pressure as much as control. But they do capture where the court is devoting time, and this term the court is devoting substantial time to a familiar set of elite advocates.

That is especially true in Trump v. Cook, which works as a useful lens for the rest of the term. Clement’s 7,104 words place him among the most heavily engaged advocates in any argument so far. Sauer, appearing on the other side of the same dispute, also appears prominently in the broader term-wide story through Learning Resources. When the court hears politically salient cases about executive authority, institutional independence, or the boundaries of presidential control, it often hears them through a small circle of experienced Supreme Court lawyers.

The justice-side numbers show an equally clear, though more complicated, pattern.

The top single-argument justice speaking total in the chart belongs to Justice Jackson in Louisiana v. Callais, at 2,747 words. Jackson also appears at 2,307 words in Trump v. Cook and at the same 2,307 words in Wolford v. Lopez. She appears again at 1,989 in Hamm v. Smith, 1,987 in Pung v. Isabella County, and 1,916 in Barrett v. United States. That is a remarkable amount of repeat presence near the top of the distribution.

Justice Sotomayor’s 2,222 words in Hamm v. Smith is another standout performance. Justice Kavanaugh appears with 2,137 words in Trump, President of United States v. Slaughter and 1,895 in Hencely v. Fluor Corp. Justice Barrett also reaches 2,017 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump. So the pattern is not simply that one justice dominates every case but rather that that Jackson appears again and again near the top, while other justices have high-volume showings in particular disputes.

That recurring Jackson presence fits what has become a familiar feature of the current Court with Jackson. Since she joined the bench, she has regularly been among the justices most inclined to engage quickly, at length, and often in doctrinally focused bursts. This term’s data appears consistent with that broader pattern. It also fits another observable feature of recent arguments: the liberal justices often account for a substantial share of total questioning.

Still, the exceptions matter, and they are worth emphasizing because they make the analysis more accurate. Kavanaugh’s appearance among the top single-argument speaking totals is the cleanest example. In Trump, President of United States v. Slaughter, he leads all justices in the chart at 2,137 words. That kind of showing is a reminder that oral argument is shaped by case-specific interests, subject matter, and questioning style. Some disputes draw sustained engagement from justices who may be less prominent in the aggregate totals.

The cumulative totals reinforce the broader pattern. Jackson leads the aggregate chart at 53,299 words across cases. She is followed by Sotomayor at 34,967 and Kagan at 30,606. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh sit in the same general range, at 27,880 and 27,657, followed by Alito at 24,541 and Barrett at 23,978. Roberts and Thomas trail the group, at 16,538 and 7,278.

Those totals suggest a bench with highly uneven speaking habits. Jackson sits in a class of her own. Sotomayor and Kagan form the next tier. Gorsuch and Kavanaugh remain highly active, though not at the same cumulative level as Jackson. Roberts and Thomas are markedly less talkative by numeric measures, which is not new as a matter of their style, but the gap is still striking.

One way to read this is that the court’s oral arguments now often run through a handful of dominant questioners. Another is that the court’s center of verbal energy has shifted somewhat in recent years, with Jackson’s arrival intensifying a tendency toward active engagement from the liberal wing. Either way, the data gives the point a concrete shape.

If Trump v. Cook offers the best advocate case study, it also offers the best visual example of how an argument is structured.

The turn-sequence plot for Trump v. Cook captures a familiar but revealing rhythm. Sauer occupies long stretches early in the argument. Clement appears later in an extended block of advocacy. Between and around them come repeated clusters of judicial questioning, with Jackson visibly active, Sotomayor and Kavanaugh making sustained appearances, and shorter interventions from Roberts, Alito, Gorsuch, Kagan, Thomas, and Barrett.

The plot does not tell a substantive story on its own, but it does show how the argument unfolded in practice. This was not a leisurely presentation interrupted by occasional questions. It was a dense exchange in which the advocates had to navigate bursts of sustained judicial attention, then recover, then do it again. The most experienced Supreme Court lawyers are often valued in part because they can survive that kind of environment while still keeping the legal frame intact.

The transcript excerpts make the point.

At one point, Justice Sotomayor pressed Sauer on the historical novelty of the dispute:

JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: A hundred and
twelve years, and it’s unprecedented that any
Federal Reserve officer has ever -- has ever
been removed. So the unprecedented nature of
this case is a -- is a part of what the
president did, not what Ms. Cook did.
GENERAL SAUER: I think that statement
has to be qualified by the recognition that
there have been situations where governors have
been credibly accused or found to have engaged
in financial improprieties, and those governors
have resigned for financial improprieties
that are quite analogous to what is at issue
in this particular case.

That exchange captures one of the defining modes of modern Supreme Court argument: the justice uses institutional history to frame the stakes, and the advocate responds by narrowing the comparison and contesting the historical characterization. Sotomayor’s question invites the Court to see the case through the lens of novelty and institutional disruption. Sauer’s response tries to blunt that force by shifting from formal removal history to analogous episodes of financial impropriety and resignation.

Later, Justice Alito pushed Clement with a hypothetical that moved quickly into extreme territory:

JUSTICE ALITO: All right. I
understand your position. How about if, after
the person assumes office, videos are disclosed
in which the office-holder is expressing deep
admiration for Hitler or for the Klan?
MR. CLEMENT: I can only imagine --
JUSTICE ALITO: That must be --
MR. CLEMENT: -- where these hypos are
going to eventually go, Your Honor, but --
JUSTICE ALITO: Well, yeah, because
your position leads to --
MR. CLEMENT: I’m going to stick with
my position.
JUSTICE ALITO: Well, you’re -- all
right.
MR. CLEMENT: Of course, I’m going to
stick with my position and I’m going to say
that’s an official that would be impeached in a
heartbeat…

This is a different but equally familiar pattern. A justice stress-tests a legal rule with an escalating hypothetical. The advocate acknowledges the force of the move without conceding the principle. Clement’s answer is recognizably that of a seasoned Supreme Court specialist: he does not run from the premise, but he does not let the hypothetical redefine the case either. He returns to the institutional mechanism—impeachment—and keeps the structure of his position in place.

Together, the two exchanges show why Trump v. Cook is such a useful case study. The argument features elite advocates, constitutional stakes, repeated engagement from multiple justices, and a transcript that moves fluidly among history, doctrine, hypotheticals, and institutional consequences. It is the sort of argument that both reflects and magnifies the larger character of the term.

The case-level charts also help show how much argument structure varies.

In some arguments, justices account for an unusually large share of the total words spoken. In Barrett v. United States, the justice share reaches 53.2 percent. In Hamm v. Smith, it is 50.3 percent. In Trump, President of United States v. Slaughter, it is 47.4 percent. Pung v. Isabella County and Wolford v. Lopez are also near the top. Louisiana v. Callais comes in at 44.7 percent, and Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump at 42.8 percent. Trump v. Cook sits at 40.0 percent.

Those are substantial numbers. In practical terms, they suggest that some of the term’s biggest arguments are not simply lawyer presentations punctuated by questions. They are conversations the justices are actively shaping in real time. That can mean sharper testing of doctrinal boundaries, more visible skepticism, or simply a court more inclined to use oral argument as a forum for working through the implications of its own possible rulings.

A related chart sharpens the point further.

In a number of cases, one justice alone accounts for a notable share of all justice speech. Jackson appears repeatedly in that role. In Rutherford v. United States, she accounts for roughly 34.7 percent of justice words. In M & K Employee Solutions v. Trustees of the IAM Pension Fund, the figure is about 33.6 percent. In Barrett v. United States, it is about 32.8 percent. She also leads in USPS v. Konan, Enbridge Energy v. Nessel, Urias-Orellana v. Bondi, GEO Group v. Menocal, Chevron USA v. Plaquemines Parish, and Trump v. Cook, where the figure is about 26.6 percent. The major exception in the top ten is Hencely v. Fluor Corp., where Kavanaugh leads at 27.5 percent.

That is a useful corrective to any effort to flatten the court into fixed speaking camps. Jackson is the most recurring dominant voice in these charts. Kavanaugh, though, clearly has cases in which he takes command of the questioning. The distribution is patterned, but it remains dynamic.

Finally, the heatmap brings the term’s cross-case texture into view.

The visual impression is consistent with the rest of the data. Jackson is dark across a wide swath of cases, a sign of high and repeated engagement. Sotomayor and Kagan also show strong participation in many of the most justice-heavy arguments. Kavanaugh’s pattern is more uneven but includes several sharp spikes, which helps explain why he appears as a leading exception in the single-case charts. Barrett and Alito are solidly present across many cases, while Roberts and Thomas remain lighter by comparison.

No speaking-time analysis can tell the whole story of oral argument. It does not measure who asked the best question, who changed a colleague’s mind, or which exchange ultimately mattered most at conference. Volume can reflect persistence, skepticism, interest, or the simple contingencies of a particular day. Still, it captures something real. Oral argument is a structured conversation, and the distribution of speech helps show who is shaping that conversation and where the court is spending its time.

So far this term, the answer is fairly clear. The court’s highest-profile arguments have centered on politically consequential disputes with large institutional stakes. Those arguments are often being handled by elite advocates with the capacity to absorb extended questioning. On the bench, Justice Jackson remains the most consistently forceful verbal presence, with Sotomayor and Kagan also heavily involved, while justices such as Kavanaugh remind observers that the pattern is not one-directional and not ideologically tidy in every case.

That combination—politically charged cases, experienced advocates, and concentrated judicial engagement—has given the term’s oral arguments a distinctive feel. The cases may be remembered for what the court eventually decides. The arguments themselves are already revealing how the justices and the lawyers are contesting those decisions in real time.

You can find data on past term’s oral arguments on Empirical SCOTUS (under Supreme Court Term Stats and in a variety of articles)