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Even after scaling down, SCOTUSblog will…

U.S. Supreme Court Even after scaling down, SCOTUSblog will cost about $250K per year, co-founder says

By Debra Cassens Weiss

October 19, 2023, 2:37 pm CDT

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SCOTUSblog co-founder Tom Goldstein started the blog in 2002 with his wife and law partner, Amy Howe, and it has helped promote his practice. He is a 2009 ABA Journal Legal Rebel. Photo by Alex Brandon/The Associated Press.

The blog known for its comprehensive coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court is trimming down, but it still plans full coverage of 40% to 60% of the docket, according to Tom Goldstein, the blog's co-founder.

Goldstein announced in an Oct. 2 blog post that SCOTUSblog will no longer have full coverage of every merits case and will be dropping its annual Stat Pack.

But SCOTUSblog will cover all the major cases, will cover petitions to watch, and will provide live coverage of opinion announcements on the blog and TikTok.

Goldstein’s decision to reduce SCOTUSblog coverage led some commentators to pronounce SCOTUSblog to be “slowly dying” and beginning a “slow farewell,” Law360 reports.

SCOTUSblog founders Tom Goldstein and Amy Howe in May 2013. Photo by Anders Krusberg, CC-BY-2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

But Goldstein told Law360 that he still plans to spend about $250,000 per year on the blog as a “public service,” down from a little more than $400,000 he spent annually on the publication. Over the years, in today’s dollars, the blog has cost Goldstein more than $10 million, he estimates.

The blog will probably cover 40% to 60% of the Supreme Court’s cases, depending on the year, he said.

The decision to scale back was made after the SCOTUSblog editor “got poached,” Goldstein said. He questioned the need to rehire for a position costing $100,000, especially because he was leaving his law firm and retiring his Supreme Court practice, a decision that he announced in March.

Goldstein had started the blog in 2002 with his wife and law partner, Amy Howe, and it has helped promote his practice. He is a 2009 ABA Journal Legal Rebel.

Howe writes for the blog, and it’s very important to her, Goldstein said.

“So long as she remains interested in it—and I think that’s going to last for a long, long time—I would be shocked if the blog retrenched further,” he said.

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