Overview

A myth-busting glimpse into the inner workings of the Supreme Court, revealing what we get wrong about the Roberts Court, what the justices' clerks gossip about, and how to fix a court in crisis—from the popular ABC news pundit and top legal podcaster ""Isgur has all your answers in these smart, snappy, clear-eyed pages.” —Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams Most people get the Supreme Court all wrong. A smattering of high-profile decisions have popularized a simplistic idea of the Court and its justices. Yes, six of them were appointed by Republicans, and only three by Democrats. So, how does that 6-3 conservative majority explain why in the 2024-25 term, conservative Brett Kavanaugh was more likely to agree with liberal Elena Kagan than conservative Neil Gorsuch? Or why the court threw shade at Florida’s attempt to ban drag shows? To truly understand the Court, argues Sarah Isgur, you have to look beyond partisan politics—the “X-Axis.” The wisest court watchers apply another measuring stick, the “Y-Axis,"" where the nine justices span from order-loving institutionalists to true chaos agents. Once you appreciate these overlapping and even competing impulses, the Court begins to look a lot more like a 3-3-3 split than 6-3. The ultimate insider, Isgur takes readers on a deep dive inside the Supreme Court: how cases land at the Court’s doorstep, which justices attend clerk happy hours (and which ones even bother showing up to the office), why conservatives already have buyer’s remorse about Amy Coney Barrett, and how the whole judicial system is kind of a constitutional anomaly. She’ll even help you decide whether you should throw your hat in the ring and go to law school! Blending irreverent humor and incisive commentary, Isgur goes underneath the robes—and shows us what we need to do to preserve the rule of law amid dicey times in this little self-governing experiment we’ve been running for the last 250 years.

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Table of Contents

Reviews

“Put aside partisanship, argues Sarah Isgur, in attempting to make sense of the Supreme Court. She offers an alternate framework in this intimate look at the untouchable nine. How do political labels actually translate to a legal context? Which judge does every modern jurist most of all revere? How might we preserve the Court’s legitimacy? Which of its members carries a pocket Constitution, which takes boxing lessons, and which lobbied for the frozen yogurt machine in the cafeteria? Isgur has all your answers in these smart, snappy, clear-eyed pages.”—Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams

“Put aside partisanship, argues Sarah Isgur, in attempting to make sense of the Supreme Court. She offers an alternate framework in this intimate look at the untouchable nine. How do political labels actually translate to a legal context? How might we preserve the Court’s legitimacy? Isgur has all your answers in these smart, snappy, clear-eyed pages.”—Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams “With legal principles challenged almost every day in America, the role of the Court has rarely been so scrutinized, making Last Branch Standing ever the more timely.”—Martha Raddatz, ABC News anchor and chief global affairs correspondent “Sarah Isgur’s Last Branch Standing is as gripping and informative as her famed podcast, Advisory Opinions. Smart, incisive, nuanced, and funny, this book advocates for the Court—and does so with panache. Isgur succeeds where many others fall short because she illustrates how the Court is not made up of heroes and villains, but real people who do their level best in service of us all.”—Lisa Blatt, Chair, Williams & Connolly’s Supreme Court and Appellate practice; 55-time Supreme Court advocate “Sarah Isgur does something truly remarkable: she manages to demystify the U.S. Supreme Court while maintaining her reverence for it.”—Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch, host of The Remnant podcast, and bestselling author of Suicide of the West “Occasionally witty, yes. Actually, often witty. More important, often wise. In a word, winning. Before I dove into this volume, I thought I knew rather a lot about the Court and its justices. Now I know a ton more—and so will you if you are wise enough to open this book and start reading.”—Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University, and author of Born Equal “Last Branch Standing is a strikingly illuminating introduction to the Supreme Court. Sarah Isgur humanizes the Justices, explains their work, and defends the Court’s integrity amid growing skepticism on both left and right. Last Branch Standing is the most accessible and engagingly written guide to the Court now available.”—Jack Goldsmith, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University “[Last Branch Standing] makes the bold and convincing argument that the Court and its justices can’t be categorized using the same hyper-partisan talking points that permeate our other government branches . . . Readers looking for clarity on this fundamental institution would be wise to ‘grant cert’ (court parlance for agreeing to hear a case) to an engaged reading of Last Branch Standing.”—Booklist

“Put aside partisanship, argues Sarah Isgur, in attempting to make sense of the Supreme Court. She offers an alternate framework in this intimate look at the untouchable nine. How do political labels actually translate to a legal context? How might we preserve the Court’s legitimacy? Isgur has all your answers in these smart, snappy, clear-eyed pages.”—Stacy Schiff, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams “The Supreme Court may seem as opaque as the justices’ black robes, but not in the hands of Sarah Isgur. This is a book for the rest of us—analytically brilliant and yet hugely entertaining, deeply respectful and also irreverent. Arcane legal arguments get recast here in delightfully plain and demystifying language. With legal principles challenged almost every day in America, the role of the Court has rarely been so scrutinized, making Last Branch Standing ever the more timely. Who would have thought that such a scrupulously fair account of such a serious institution could be so fun to read!”—Martha Raddatz, ABC News anchor and chief global affairs correspondent “Sarah Isgur’s Last Branch Standing is as gripping and informative as her famed podcast, Advisory Opinions. Smart, incisive, nuanced, and funny, this book advocates for the Court—and does so with panache. Isgur succeeds where many others fall short because she illustrates how the Court is not made up of heroes and villains, but real people who do their level best in service of us all. If you want to learn about the Supreme Court—and have great fun along the way—this book is a must-read.”—Lisa Blatt, Chair, Williams & Connolly’s Supreme Court and Appellate practice; 55-time Supreme Court advocate “Sarah Isgur does something truly remarkable: she manages to demystify the U.S. Supreme Court while maintaining her reverence for it. In Last Branch Standing, Isgur illuminates not just how the court actually works, but why partisans and court-bashers of the right and left so often fall for cartoonish explanations for court decisions. Like the author, Last Branch Standing is always smart and insightful, often surprising and fun, and not infrequently profound.”—Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch, host of The Remnant podcast, and bestselling author of Suicide of the West “Occasionally witty, yes. Actually, often witty. More important, often wise. In a word, winning. Before I dove into this volume, I thought I knew rather a lot about the Court and its justices. Now I know a ton more—and so will you if you are wise enough to open this book and start reading.”—Akhil Reed Amar, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale University, and author of Born Equal “Last Branch Standing is a strikingly illuminating introduction to the Supreme Court. Sarah Isgur humanizes the Justices, explains their work, and defends the Court’s integrity amid growing skepticism on both left and right. Last Branch Standing is the most accessible and engagingly written guide to the Court now available.”—Jack Goldsmith, Learned Hand Professor of Law, Harvard University

Author Information

Sarah Isgur is the editor of SCOTUSblog, a regular on ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos, and co-host of Advisory Opinions, the nation's top legal podcast. She served in the DOJ as the director of the Office of Public Affairs, helped run Carly Fiorina’s presidential campaign, and clerked for Judge Edith H. Jones of the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. She’s a graduate of Harvard Law School and Northwestern University.

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