Supreme Court announces return to courtroom in October

The Supreme Court will return to in-person oral arguments in October, but with restrictions on who may attend them.

The court heard cases remotely via conference call for part of its term that ran from 2019 to 2020 and all its term that ran from 2020 to 2021. The court during the pandemic provided a live audio feed of the arguments, which for the first time allowed members of the public who were not in the courtroom to hear live Supreme Court arguments.  With the change in medium also came a change in the format of the oral arguments. Rather than having the justices in no particular order interrupt counsel throughout the oral argument session, the justices each got a set amount of time to ask the lawyers questions in descending order of seniority.