Chief Justice Clement and her colleagues had a heavy oral argument-opinion docket in the 2023-24 term. They really did a solid positioning the Court to be more current with matters scheduled for oral argument. A “keep the trains running” era like we last saw when Bob Young was CJ is within sight.

How so?

Let’s start with the amount of docket numbers decided during a term. The Clement Court put their foot on the gas and didn’t let up all term:

Term	Decided docket numbers by opinion or after argument
2020–2021	80
2021–2022	98
2022–2023	68
2023–2024	102

The Clement Court also picked up the pace (by an 80-day average) between when a case was filed and when an opinion or post-argument order was issued.

And, finally, as the Court readies to begin its 2024-25 term, the Court has fewer matters teed up for oral argument at this point than it did last year.

On September 29, 2023, the Court still had 93 docket numbers queued up for oral argument. A lot. The average case age of those awaiting argument was 750 days.

Fast forward to September 29, 2024: CJ Clement has shaved that number down a third to 61 docket numbers lined up for oral argument with an average pending case age of 441 days.

Impressive improvement.