December judiciary report recorded fewer Supreme Court filings and more appeals

The federal judiciary’s 2025 year-end report, issued by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. on December 31, 2025, paired a discussion of the Declaration of Independence with an appendix documenting the courts’ workload. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts identified it as Roberts’s 21st report since he became chief justice in 2005. ^{[1] [2]}

The appendix reported 3,856 Supreme Court filings in the October 2024 term, down 9% from 4,223 in the previous term. It recorded 73 argued cases and 56 signed opinions disposing of 64 cases. Those figures use the Supreme Court’s term-based reporting period, covering July 3, 2024, through June 30, 2025, rather than the lower courts’ fiscal-year window. ^[1]

For the 12 months ending September 30, 2025, regional appeals-court filings rose 5% to 41,824. Even after that annual increase, the total remained 14% below fiscal 2019, the last full year before the pandemic. Civil appeals accounted for 22,812 filings, an increase of 7%. The report also counted 303,563 federal district-court civil filings, a 4% increase. Its figures provide a dated measure of incoming work across separate parts of the federal court system. ^[1]

About this item: Retrospective source brief. No first-hand reporting or independent testing is claimed. Corrections policy.