New Role and Venture for Adam Liptak

For more than 18 years, Adam Liptak has been moonlighting as a columnist, writing Sidebar every other week even as he wrote prolifically about the news of the Supreme Court. Sidebar has always been a gem in its own right, offering smart analysis and observations about issues before the court and the people shaping them. It's also been a reader favorite, regularly drawing a substantial audience.

We're excited to say that Adam is now about to embark on a new chapter. He will be the author of a new weekly newsletter, The Docket, which will draw heavily on Sidebar DNA but also offer readers even more features to keep them up to date about the courts and the constitutional and other legal questions that are front and center these days. We expect The Docket to debut next month. You can sign up here to receive it.

In keeping with Adam's new mandate to range widely on the court and the array of consequential issues being placed before the judicial system, he will also carry a new title, chief legal affairs correspondent. From that perch, he will continue to write big analytical and news stories beyond his newsletter duties, keeping his voice at the heart of our coverage of the court and this compelling period in American history.

Over the years, Adam has used Sidebar to write about a courtroom sketch artist who turned out not actually to be sketching his pictures at the court, the jailhouse lawyer who got a case heard by the justices, the deputy solicitor general who won a standing ovation and the retired justice who wanted to vent about what he saw as a disastrous wrong turn by the court in a string of campaign finance rulings. A recent column on a conservative legal scholar who raised doubts about the constitutional justification for the unitary executive theory was one of the most-read stories we published that week.

Having Adam repurpose his column-writing skills on a newsletter is part of our effort to deepen engagement and reach new audiences via different channels and in different formats. Given the changes in search and social, newsletters are an increasingly important channel to ensure Times journalism gets to readers who want it and to make it an essential habit and easily accessible part of their lives. (The Docket will of course also be available via the app and website.)

It is also more evidence of our commitment to more ambitious coverage of the Supreme Court and the federal judiciary. Adam will continue to collaborate closely with Ann Marimow, Abbie VanSickle, Jodi Kantor, Matt Schwartz and Zach Montague in tracking cases, courts, judges and legal and constitutional issues.

Please join us in congratulating Adam on this new chapter.

- Dick, Jodi and Roz