A/N: This will give some people a look on what I've been doing during partial hiatus.
Yes...government work. But hey, most people don't know how the Supreme Court works. This is practice to see if I'd been learning enough to list crap without looking at notes as well, so this works, right?

Also, this doesn't really get into specifics. Just structure and what judges handle what.
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"Hey, Arty?"

Arty looked away from her computer, looking to Layla and giving the adopted child her full attention. She rose her eyebrows with a hum noise.

Layla look at the computer screen, seeing an article and what looked like a Google Doc filled with notes side by side onscreen.

"What are you doing?"

"Oh, this?" Arty jabbed a thumb towards the computer, "just some stuff on SCOTUS."

Layla looked extremely confused by that answer, so Arty continued in answer to the unspoken question, "It's a way of referring to the Supreme Court, the lead court of the Judiciary Branch of the U.S. government, that's all. I'm looking at the cases they handle."

"Oh. What's the Supreme Court made of?"

Arty let out a long breath through inflated cheeks, "well, it's a group of nine people called Justices. Within the nine, one is considered the 'Chief Justice'."

"Who's he?" Layla asks, interested, pulling up the second swivel chair in the room.

"He leads the court, basically. In Conferences between Justices he leads conversation and is the first to vote for official decisions on cases the Court takes. Anyways, this board of Justices handles the BIG cases, while courts below the Supreme Court handle smaller cases. Things that question federal law or the Constitution, or both."

Layla chews on that information, the gears in her brain turning.

"May I ask more questions? I don't want to bother you too much in what you're doing."

Arty waves that dismissively, replying, "That's fine, I don't mind. Ask away, I know you're curious."

Layla chooses her first question, quickly saying, "What are the smaller courts?"

"Smaller courts, hmm..." Arty thought about how to put her words, then explained, "There are two tiers of courts under the Supreme Court. The closest one to the Supreme Court are the Appellate Courts, which there are about 12 of them. The District Court is the lowest tier, under the Supreme and Appellate Courts. There are around 94 District Courts spread around the USA."

"Appellate Court sounds really important."

"They are, but they don't change much about cases. They don't really do anything as powerful as the Supreme Court does either; they basically review the District Court's cases that have been appealed, or transferred, to them. They make sure the District Court didn't error in any way, like forget about a law that applies to a case, or if a law was applied incorrectly."

Layla listens silently.

"The District Courts handle small offenses to the state laws, nothing federal. Parking tickets, for example. The Appellate Courts, um...think of that court kind of like a bridge between the District and Supreme Court. Things that get transferred from the District Court to the Appellate Court if someone in a particular case had a complaint, and the Appellate Court will look over the case with a fine-tooth comb. If they deem it important enough or if convinced by a circumstance, they can pass the case up to the Supreme Court."

Layla pipes up, "Can the Supreme Court say no to a case?"

Arty smiles, answering, "they can. In fact, very few cases are accepted into the Supreme Court. Ballparking it, about five in one hundred cases get accepted."

"Wow, geez. That's so little!"

"Mhmm," Arty confirmed, "they handle the most important cases, I already mentioned. The things that require the Supreme Court's attention are for things that might affect the nation as a whole. Very few arguements are like that!"

"Wait, like the one with the transgender bathrooms?" Layla blurted.

"Yeah, the Supreme Court is handling it as we speak. That one is recent, I'm suprised you remembered that. Such a smart young lady already!" Arty smiled, kissing Layla's forehead as the smaller female giggled.

Arty looked at the time at the corner of the computer screen and smiled as she turned back to Layla.

"Want to keep talking as we make dinner?"

"Sure!" Layla brightened up at that, "I'm hungry anyway."

"Well," Arty made a face at the smaller female, in a fake accusatory tone, "why didn't you tell me in the first place? We could've been halfway through by now."

Layla laughed lightheartedly, nudging Arty's arm.

"The 'SCARPUS' thing sounded interesting!"