About SCOTUSGate

SCOTUSGate tracks petitions for certiorari and shadow-docket activity at the Supreme Court of the United States, with a particular focus on making pending cases accessible and visible to the public.

Origin

For many years I relied on certpool.com as an essential resource for monitoring the Court’s certiorari docket. When that site stopped updating, I created SCOTUSGate in 2024 and ran it on my personal computer — checking daily for new and interesting Supreme Court cases. The project uses AI tools to enhance the docket sheets — pulling in the questions presented, organizing case information, and highlighting cases that might otherwise escape notice. In February 2026, I decided to launch SCOTUSGate publicly.

I use SCOTUSGate to identify new intellectual property cases to write about on Patently-O and in my broader academic work. But the site covers the full breadth of the Court’s docket, and I hope it proves useful to anyone tracking Supreme Court activity.

Why “SCOTUSGate”?

The database behind the site is named Cerberus — after the three-headed dog of Greek myth who guards the gates of the underworld. I thought it was a fitting namesake for a system that watches the gate.

What We Track

• Petitions for certiorari — both paid and in forma pauperis (IFP), from the moment they are docketed through final disposition
• Conference activity — which cases are distributed for each conference, relisted cases, and conference outcomes
• Cert-stage briefing — amicus briefs, responses, CVSG invitations, and Solicitor General filings
• Case status flags — grants, denials, GVRs, dismissals, rehearings, and shadow-docket activity
• Questions presented — extracted from petition PDFs using OCR and AI summarization
• Topic tags and key terms — AI-assigned subject-matter classifications for filtering and discovery
• Attorney and firm tracking — who represents whom, with cross-references to other cases

Data and Methods

All docket information is sourced from the Supreme Court of the United States public docket. The pipeline runs automatically several times per day:

• Docket data is downloaded directly from the Court’s public JSON API and loaded into a structured database.
• Questions presented are extracted from petition PDFs using a combination of OCR (for scanned documents) and regex pattern matching, then refined using a large language model (Claude by Anthropic).
• Topic tags are assigned by an AI classifier that reads each petition’s docket entries and questions presented. Tags are reviewed periodically for accuracy.
• Case flags (granted, denied, CVSG, relisted, etc.) are derived algorithmically from docket entries — not manually curated.

The database typically reflects the Court’s public docket within a few hours of updates being posted.

What’s Not Included

• Merits-stage briefing and oral argument transcripts (we focus on the cert pipeline)
• Full opinion text (links to opinions are provided via the SCOTUS docket)
• Original jurisdiction cases

How SCOTUSGate Compares

Site	Primary Focus	What SCOTUSGate Adds
SCOTUSblog	News coverage and case commentary	Structured tracking, filters, statistics across the full docket
Oyez	Oral argument audio and granted-case summaries	Cert-stage pipeline focus, real-time docket status for all pending cases
SCOTUS.gov	Official docket and orders	AI-enhanced search, topic classification, conference tracking, cross-case discovery

How to Cite

If you reference SCOTUSGate data in academic work, journalism, or legal filings, please cite as:

For specific case data, include the case number and URL:

For Journalists and Academics

SCOTUSGate is designed to be a reliable reference for anyone writing about the Court. The data is sourced directly from official docket records and updated multiple times daily. Tag classifications and AI-generated summaries are tools for discovery and should be verified against primary sources for publication. If you have questions about the data or methodology, or would like to discuss a collaboration, please reach out.

Purpose

SCOTUSGate exists to bring transparency to the certiorari and shadow-docket stages of Supreme Court litigation, to highlight important pending cases, and to lower the barriers to accessing court information. The docket belongs to the public, and public understanding of the Court depends on being able to see what is before it.