I spent about an hour today looking for a new opinion to write about, all the while muttering to myself about how December's always a slow month for opinions, what with the many holidays and family get-togethers, to say nothing of the endless procession of time-themed ghosts with their wailing cries and clanking chains.
Humbug.
My search was ultimately fruitless, but it did inspire me to check if December actually is a slow month for opinions, or if that's just something that seems like it ought to be true.
So I ran the numbers through Docket Navigator, counting all the opinions on contested motions from the start of last December (2024). The data is horrid—frequently the same opinion will appear multiple times leading to unpredictable overcounting—but the errors should all be in the same direction so it should be good enough for the purposes of sating my curiosity.
As it turns out, my intuition was pretty spot on.
The three months with the fewest opinions are all big vacation or holiday months:
- December - 69
- June - 67
- November - 65
The months with the most opinions were a bit more surprising (although they were all clustered fairly close in the top half)
- August - 113
- July - 114
- February - 116
So there you go—if you happen to be a legal blogger looking to take a month off to avoid the torments of Christmases past, present, and future, December is a good choice. But you had best be back by the February rush.
