New rules and a new term

Last November, the U.S. Supreme Court proposed a collection of changes to its rules.Among these was a combination of suggested reductions to the word limit for certain briefs — from 15,000 to 13,000 words for each party’s principal brief on the merits, from 6,000 to 4,500 for merits replies and from 9,000 to 8,000 for amicus curiae briefs on the merits.As the Clerk’s …