With the start of fall in Washington, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court are preparing to reassert themselves into the nation's consciousness with another nine months of arguments, orders and opinions on the most pressing legal questions of the day.

But before the new term formally kicks off on the "first Monday in October," as it has done since 1917, the nine most powerful jurists in the country will gather behind closed doors on Sept. 30 for their longest private conference of the year. At what has become known as the "long conference," the justices will decide what should be done with the more than 1,000 petitions that have been piling up since they have been on recess (… to places like Portugal, in Justice Neil Gorsuch's case.)