Professor David Cleveland has posted this follow-up on the Appellate Advocacy Blog to my recent post about the Third Circuit’s low published-opinion numbers.

He writes:

Matthew suggests that judicial vacancy is the the likely reason for the Third Circuit’s recent spike in its unpublished opinion rate to 92.3%. That seems accurate, though the Third has been hovering in the high-80s for a while now. Judicial vacancy may have pushed them up to the low-90s where the high-volume circuits are.