The People’s Counsel
You are counsel in a real case that was really decided. The courthouse has five rooms and you walk them in any order — your table, the record, the authorities, opposing counsel’s table, and the courtroom. Then the bench asks three questions and you answer each with one authority and one fact from what you actually read. Walk it in 3D or in text mode: same rooms, same record, same bench, same case.
Nobody breaks on the stand here. The genre this game borrows its shape from is built on the gotcha — the contradiction spotted, the witness cracked, the room gasping. Real advocacy is almost never that, and a game that teaches otherwise makes worse citizens. So the shape is kept and the fantasy is cut: there is no witness, no confession and no objection. What you do is build the strongest honest reading of a record and meet the strongest honest reading against it.
Three of these cases cannot be won. In one, the reading everybody’s instinct reaches in four seconds loses on a rule that also protects them. In one the applicant is right about his right and loses on the court’s power to give him anything. In one the argument is sound and belongs in a different building. The best you can do in those three is a concession honestly made, and the game marks it as a concession rather than dressing it up as a victory. That is not a difficulty setting: it is the half of the job every courtroom drama leaves out, and it is why the docket has them.
Real cases, real records. Every case is a decided, published, public-domain opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, cited on its own page. The facts are the facts the opinion states; no testimony is invented and nothing is put in anybody’s mouth. Where a party is a private individual they are described by their role — the defendant, the child, the homeowners, the students — and the surname survives only in the caption, where it is a citation rather than a character. Where a case is contested or was narrowed afterwards, the game says so and names what narrowed it.
One case is hard to read. It turns on the serious injury of a small child and states the facts the opinion states. The docket is a list rather than a ladder: nothing is locked, nothing is unlocked, and you can argue the other four without ever opening it.
You are at counsel table. The record room is to your left, the reading room to your right, opposing counsel behind you, and the courtroom ahead.
THIS IS NOT A GAME ABOUT THE GOTCHA. Nobody breaks on the stand here. No witness confesses, no contradiction wins a case, and there is no moment where the room gasps. Courtroom drama teaches that advocacy is a gotcha sprung at the right second, and that is false often enough to make worse citizens of the people who believe it. Real advocacy is this: read everything, say only what your record can carry, state the other side's best argument better than they will, and ask for the relief you can actually justify. That is the whole game, and it is harder than the gasp.
Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335 (1963)
Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state court to appoint counsel for a defendant too poor to hire one, in a felony prosecution?
You are counsel for the defendant. Grade — established.
Every case in this docket is a real, decided, published case of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the opinions are in the public domain. The facts you read in the record room are the facts the opinion states. No testimony is invented and nothing is put in anybody's mouth: where a party is a private individual they are described by their role — the defendant, the child, the homeowner, the students — and the surname survives only in the case caption, where it is a citation rather than a character.
What is modelled and what is real. The rooms, the walking speed, the reach of a station and the turn rate are a model of a courthouse and are labelled MODELED — NOT SOURCED in the registry. The question presented, the record facts, the authorities, the holding, what the Court did not reach and what later narrowed it are the case, and each carries its citation. The bench's questions are ours: a real argument runs longer and rougher than three questions, and this is a model of the discipline, not a transcript.
Links point to the reported opinion or to the holding institution's page for the cited document — the National Archives for the founding documents, the Office of the Law Revision Counsel for the United States Code, and the reported opinion for every case. The citation in the label is the authority; the link is the shortest honest route to it. No link in this file was opened from the machine that wrote it, and that is recorded rather than implied.
In three of these five cases the party you represent goes home with nothing, and no argument available in the room changes that. That is not a difficulty setting. In one the reading everybody's instinct reaches in four seconds loses on a rule that also protects them; in one the applicant is right about his right and loses on the court's power to give him anything; in one the argument is sound and belongs in a different building. In those three the best relief you can win is a concession — the game marks it as one rather than dressing it up as a victory. Every genre that dramatises law hides this, because losing well is not a scene. It is most of the job.
Nothing here is scored, saved, sent anywhere or compared to anybody. There is no timer and nothing expires while you are away: the case waits for the person. This is a game about how to read a record and it is not legal advice — if you have a real matter, talk to a lawyer. For the real levers rather than the practice ones, the procedures live at the Transparency Toolkit, with their deadlines, their statutory authorities and the things they cannot do.