Jeffrey Fisher, a law professor at Stanford who argued 48 cases over the years covered by the study, including four by phone, called those arguments “super frustrating.”

“It was just like all these little isolated free-range segments that are not very productive,” he said. “I just thought it was a totally different exercise.”

Professor Fisher said the public and the court both gained from the new approach.

“It’s a great combination of letting the collective free-for-all happen, so that they can talk with each other and maybe try and forge compromises or float new ideas or work with each other,” he said of the justices.

The split is telling, Professor Fisher said. “It’s such a wonderful, easy way to explain to somebody what oral argument really is,” he said. “It’s almost as much a meeting among the justices as it is a lawyer presentation.”