How does Scotus Work

There are many websites that review what the Supreme Court is doing, but I think the official website of the United States Supreme Court is very good. Here are the basics of how the Supreme Court works. 

First the Justices have to decide which cases to hear. The Supreme Court gets more than 7000 requests each year, and they only accept about 100-150. It is up to the nine Justices if they accept a case or not. Before a case gets to the Supreme Court it had to be heard by several lower court, a process that takes three-five years. A case is only accepted by the Supreme Court if it matters to a lot of people in the country. Remember, the Supreme Court is there to settle what the "law" is, not to settle any facts. 

The Court is "in session" from October through June. The Court typically hears one case in the morning and one case in the afternoon Mondays-Wednesdays October-April. Everyone involved has already read through hundreds of pages about the case. On Thursdays the Justices work with their own teams and on Fridays the Justices meet privately with each other.

In their private sessions, the Justices decide how they want to vote on each case. After they decide, the Chief Justice assigns one Justice to write the "majority" opinion and one Justice to write the "minority" opinion. Other Justices may choose to write "dissenting" or "consenting" opinions if they feel strongly about a particular aspect of a case. Although all these opinions are important, the "law" is the majority opinion. It is preferable to have a strong majority such as 6-3 or 7-2 or better, but many difficult cases are decided 5-4. 

Each Justice has four law clerks who assist them. The law clerks are young lawyers who just graduated from law school. To become a law clerk you have to apply to a specific Justice, have an excellent record, be highly recommended, go through an intense interview process, and have already clerked for a lower court. It is a great honor to be a law clerk, and most future Justices clerked for a Justice when they were younger.