[ Rulings offer glimpse into what kind of justice Gorsuch would be]

In his decade on the 10th Circuit, Gorsuch heard and wrote opinions on hundreds of cases that set legal precedent. Judges on appeals courts face a “vastly larger” volume of cases than those on the highest court, and there isn’t as much information available about each case, said Adam Feldman, a scholar of the court who created the blog Empirical SCOTUS blog.

Feldman provided data from the legal research service Westlaw, which categorizes judges’ published, precedent-setting opinions by topic. By comparing how frequently a judge saw one of 23 legal topics on the appeals court with how frequently the same topics reached the Supreme Court in the last three years, The Washington Post created a relative exposure index that measures how prepared a justice might be for the job.

[ Gorsuch begins his confirmation hearings with broad support among Republicans]

The distinct focus of each appeals court circuit accounts for some of the differences in each judge’s record. Generally, the 10th Circuit hears more standard cases in criminal law and private civil litigation than the D.C appeals court, which handles more administrative agency appeals. A Congressional Research Service report on Gorsuch’s experience said “the Tenth Circuit rarely has the opportunity to address certain topics, such as international law and foreign affairs, terrorism and national security, and major agency actions in the field of environmental law.”

Here’s how the cases that the nominee and the justices heard in various areas of law compare. The topics are sorted in order of how frequently they are heard on the Supreme Court.