Upping the Ante

Last month I wrote a post about a fantastic Supreme Court and legal resource called Oyez.org, with my focus being the easy to read and simplistic approach afforded by each case review.  It is pretty well known that law students are required to read large amounts of material, the majority of which are case opinions released by the court.  However, for millennials or the average person looking to understand a Supreme Court case, recent or more dated, reading an entire 40 page opinion can be time consuming and difficult to follow.  I recommended Oyez.org because of the easy and informative breakdown they offer for some of the most complicated cases, but I want to revisit my post and offer a quick update.  While Oyez.org is certainly an invaluable resource, I want to provide another website/blog that offers an even more immediate and fast-paced analysis of Supreme Court cases.  The blog I'm referring to is called SCOTUSblog.com.  

As I mentioned in my previous post here, many millennials and those of younger generations do not have the time or attention span to thumb through a lengthy court opinion.  Last month, the Supreme Court released the most anticipated decisions of their term ranging from same-sex marriage to the Voting Rights Act.  Many people (albeit strong likelihood a majority of law nerds!) were watching cable news and waiting for the first reports on how the court ruled on one of the major final cases.  If you remember last summer when the cable networks first announced the court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), numerous outlets got the initial ruling incorrect and caused a lot of confusion.  If you had been on SCOTUSblog's live blogging you would have had access to the actual opinion in PDF form and could have avoided all the confusion.  Well, this year was no different, I was able to learn the rulings on the Voting Rights Act and the landmark same-sex marriage cases nearly 15 minutes before CNN, FOX News, or MSNBC announced anything!  SCOTUSblog.com has several people inside the courtroom live blogging directly and connect you almost instantly to the Supreme Court's decision.  The live blogging feature stands out as one of the most thorough, yet immediate announcement of case opinions and legal reaction.  Here is what the blog looks like and what everyone at my law firm was looking at (instead of doing work!)

As you can see, there are not too many bells and whistles but that is exactly what you need.  When you think of twitter or instagram, these social media sites have grown exponentially in popularity partly because of the basic yet instant relay of information.  More and more people want to share photos and thoughts immediately without having to invest too much time, and the same principle applies to SCOTUSblog's live blogging feature.  Although the Supreme Court's term has come to and end and the justices are on recess until October, check out the live blogging feature when the next release of opinions happens at the end of this year and throughout 2014!