This week, we turn to another subject in our analysis of the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision making in civil cases – what determines the length of the Court’s opinions?

Majority opinions are not only comparatively short at the Illinois Supreme Court – they appear to be getting shorter:

We would expect majority opinions in divided courts to be at least slightly longer, given the need for a majority to address the major points raised by dissenting colleagues. But at the Illinois Supreme Court, majority opinions for divided courts have not been significantly longer than the Court’s unanimous opinions:

Tomorrow, we’ll turn to the Court’s concurrences and dissents.

Image courtesy of Flickr by Jason Llagan (no changes).