Early last year we took a look at how often Federal Circuit
judges sit (see blog post). A lot has happened since then,
including two new judges joining the court. Below is an updated
chart showing data through the August 2022 sitting:
As a reminder, the chart above shows how many different panel
days each judge heard argument across each calendar year (and the
first eight months of 2022). We excluded panels convened to hear
only one case. That can happen, for example, because of a rare
argument on a motion or for plus panels, where one judge of a main
panel is replaced for a single case (perhaps because of conflicts
or when a case comes back on appeal after a remand).
As we noted last year, the data confirm what we often hear
– the judges decide many cases a year. But the data also
confirm something many regular Federal Circuit practitioners have
probably noticed—the number of sittings seems to have dipped
in the past year or so. For example, although our data
