Fewer than 2% of the cases that ask the U.S. Supreme Court for a hearing actually get one. The other 98% end quietly, with no explanation, no vote count, and no path forward. For the small number of cases that do make it through, what follows is a months-long process involving secret conferences, seniority-based vote-taking, and drafts that circulate among nine justices until a majority signs on — a system almost nothing like how lower courts operate.

Getting In the Door: Certiorari

The Supreme Court doesn’t have to hear any case that comes its way — with rare exceptions, it chooses. A party that lost in a lower court can file a petition for a writ of certiorari, essentially asking the Court to review the case. The Court receives thousands of these petitions every year but grants only around 100 to 150. Under what’s known as the “rule of four,” it takes votes from just four of the nine justices — not a majority — to agree to hear a case, according to the U.S. Courts website. Law clerks screen the flood of petitions and write memos recommending which are worth the justices’ time, and the Court tends to prioritize cases involving major constitutional questions or ones where lower courts have reached conflicting conclusions.

Briefs, Then an Hour in the Room

Once a case is accepted, both sides submit written legal briefs laying out their arguments, and outside groups often file “friend of the court” briefs to weigh in with additional perspective — high-profile cases can draw well over a hundred of these. Then comes oral argument: each side typically gets 30 minutes, though in practice most of that time is spent fielding rapid-fire questions from the justices rather than delivering a prepared speech. The Court hears arguments from October through April, usually two cases a day.

The Private Vote

Days after oral argument, the justices meet alone in a closed conference — no clerks, no staff, just the nine of them. The Chief Justice speaks first about the case, then each justice weighs in in order of seniority, from most to least senior. Voting follows the same order, with the Chief Justice going first. A simple majority decides the outcome. This conference is one of the most closely guarded traditions in government — no recordings, no transcripts, nothing beyond what the justices themselves later reveal.

Writing the Opinion

Once the vote is settled, someone has to write it up. If the Chief Justice voted with the majority, the Chief Justice assigns who writes the majority opinion; otherwise, that job falls to the most senior justice in the majority. The assigned justice drafts an opinion and circulates it to the others, and this is where cases can still shift — justices negotiate over the language, and a justice can even change sides based on how a draft reads. A majority of the Court must formally agree to the opinion’s content before it’s released. Justices who disagree with the outcome can write dissents, and those who agree with the outcome but not the reasoning can write concurrences — both become part of the public record alongside the majority opinion.

Why the Timeline Stretches So Long

From petition to published opinion, a single case can take the better part of a year or longer. Oral arguments happen October through April, but many of the most significant opinions aren’t released until June, at the very end of the Court’s term — the result of months of drafting, circulating, and negotiating language that will serve as binding precedent for lower courts nationwide. That deliberate pace, unlike almost anything else in American government, is built into how the Court operates by design.