About

SCOTUS OA (\ ˈskō-təs ōā\)

ScotusOA.com is a website focused on data-driven analysis of oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court.

We are avid readers of SCOTUSBlog and we recommend that site for its analysis of Supreme Court cases all the way from the initial grant of certiorari to final decision. We are not affiliated with SCOTUSBlog and our aim is to highlight how text data mining, empirical analysis, and legal analysis can be combined to analyze individual cases and broader trends across time.

The SCOTUS OA team

The SCOTUS OA team consists of Prof. Tonja Jacobi (Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law) and Prof. Matthew Sag (Loyola University of Chicago School of Law).

Tonja Jacobi

Tonja Jacobi

[personal website] [Northwestern website] [twitter] [ssrn author page]

I am a Professor of Law at Northwestern Pritzker Law School. My research focuses on: judicial politics, behavior, and strategy; American governmental institutions; and constitutional law, particularly constitutional criminal procedure.

I earned my PhD in Political Science from Stanford University, where I wrote my dissertation on separation of powers constraints on the judiciary. I also hold a Masters from the University of California, Berkeley, a law degree with First Class Honors from the Australian National University, and a bachelors degree with First Class Honors, also from the Australian National University.

 

Matthew Sag

Matthew Sag

[personal website] [Loyola website] [twitter] [ssrn author page]

I am Georgia Reithal Professor of Law at Loyola University of Chicago School, where I am also the Associate Director for Intellectual Property of the Institute for Consumer Antitrust Studies. I am also an Advisory Board Member of the HathiTrust Research Center.

I studied economic history, political science and law at the Australian National University where I graduated with honors. I clerked for Justice Paul Finn at the Federal Court of Australia and I have practiced law in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

My research focuses on intellectual property and its intersection with technology and competition law. My interest in empirical analysis of the law and in text mining lead me to author a series of empirical studies of judicial behavior.

My work has been published in leading journals such as Nature, and the law reviews of the University of California Berkeley, Northwestern, Georgetown, Iowa, and Notre Dame, among others. My research on copyright and fair use has been widely cited in academic works, court submissions, judicial opinions and government reports.

 

Image credit/website header (The front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC, at dusk, by Gary Blakeley, licensed through Shutterstock)