It’s somehow 2026, and the new year means fresh planners, overly ambitious resolutions, and the annual urge to look backward before charging ahead. It’s also the perfect time to chat appeals with the one-and-only Steve Emmert. What’s on the docket? Case stats and opinions.

Takeaways:

• The SCV issued slightly more opinions and published orders than they did in 2024. 
• The SCV reverses the CAV often—if they grant your appeal.
• Family law has become my most popular appellate practice area, followed closely by criminal law and real property disputes. 
• Note: the SCV also issued two opinions just before the New Year: a wage theft case and a med mal case that are worth paying attention to.

Just call me a statistician

Steve and I don’t have the Court’s report yet, so we did our own highly technical analysis (i.e. we manually tallied decisions). 

*drumroll* …and we got some interesting results.

Decisions:

The SCV issued 40 Opinions and published orders (ignoring unpublished orders). This is up 3 from last year. By contrast, in 2023, the Supremes only wrote 28. Woof. 

ChatGPT tells me that a normal range for other state supreme courts with “petition-driven” dockets is 20-60 a year. So we are allegedly average. 

Who writes the most majority opinions?

• Justice McCullough: 9
• Powell and Russell: tied at 6
• Chafin: 4
• Kelsey: 3 (this honestly surprised me)
• And last but not least (…but they did actually write the least) Mann and Goodwyn: 2 majority opinions each for 2025. I do want to give Justice Mann credit for his eloquent concurrences and dissents more generally (remember Vlaming and Orndoff, anyone?). We see you, Justice Mann!

The Chief Justice wrote fewer decisions but has extra responsibilities. On the other end of the spectrum is Justice McCullough, who clearly loves to write opinions and is leading the charge by far. I’m looking forward to Justice Fulton’s future decisions, too.

How often is the CAV getting reversed? A lot.

As we know, not every appeal goes to the Court of Appeals first. But of those that did in 2025, if the Supreme Court took the case, it reversed the CAV 58% of the time (at least in part). And in three of the decisions affirming the CAV, the SCV affirmed the judgment but not the CAV’s reasoning. 

I’m a glass half-full kinda gal. If you want more of a reason to hire an appeals lawyer to go to the SCV, you’ve got it.

In fairness, though, the CAV is large, it has a lot of cases, and there are many newer judges. And sometimes reasonable people simply disagree (read Welsh v. Commonwealth’s candid acknowledgment of that—it’s hard to be a judge just as it’s hard to be a lawyer). So it’s fair that the Supreme Court sometimes draws different conclusions. And, from my perspective, asking for a second chance is what keeps me in business! 

My appeals

I count myself lucky to do this insanely hard, interesting work. It’s fun to share some of my own stats about the appeal cases my firm has worked on. Since opening, family law has been the most popular practice area. Second is criminal law, followed by real property. Next is breach of contract cases, PI cases, and general civil cases and administrative appeals. 

I love the variety personally. I tell my family that I get to learn for a living. How lucky am I? Although I was talking to some trial lawyer colleagues and they shared with me that my job is their personal nightmare. So, again, reasonable people can disagree 😉

Thank you to my readers and colleagues

To wrap up, I’m so thankful for the trial lawyers who are kind enough to think of me for their appeals. It is tough work but so important. I appreciate you.

On that note, cheers to an even better 2026. May we get the cases that “fill up our cup” and may we learn and do better every day. 

For those who enjoy it, a David vs. Goliath post is next up.