How much do you think it costs to file an appeal at the Supreme Court?

What would be fair?

To start, the filing fee is “only” $300, which is cheaper than it is in district ($405) or circuit ($605) court.

But then there are the printing costs because for some reason in 2026, litigants in most instances have to print and submit 40 bound copies of their filings. What in the world is this nonsense?

We know some justices read the briefs on their iPads and that their law clerks, all Gen Zers or young millennials, likely do the same.

This issue came to a head recently when a majority of the justices denied a prisoner the right to file in forma pauperis, for which the fees and the unnecessary printing are waived, since he “abused this Court’s process.”

But FTC backs Justice Jackson’s view; she noted in a dissent that the prisoner, Danny Howell, had “filed only six petitions over the span of 14 years—hardly [the] flood” that would compel rescinding the IFP courtesy.

Not only should Howell not have to pay somewhere between $1,000 and $10,000 (not a typo!) to print his SCOTUS filings, no one should be paying this.

Do we have another issue we need to work on fixing? Absolutely.