2678306311_27b4b0d2ff_zYesterday, we addressed the Illinois Supreme Court’s standards for granting leave to file amicus briefs. Today, we turn to the data.

Civil cases which attract no amicus briefs are rare before the United States Supreme Court and a few of the state Supreme Courts, such as California. Multiple-amicus cases are not uncommon, and cases with dozens of amicus briefs are not entirely unheard of. But the mean number of amicus briefs filed in civil cases before the Illinois Supreme Court has remained low throughout our study period:

Table 30

Next week, we’ll turn to the writings of the individual Justices who have sat on the Illinois Supreme Court between 2000 and 2014.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Steve Cornelius.