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Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland was tapped for the high court by President Barack Obama in March. | Getty Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland to return to hearing appeals court cases

Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland is going back to his day job hearing cases as chief judge of the D.C. Circuit, acknowledging that his dim chances of being confirmed by the Senate were extinguished by Donald Trump's victory in the presidential election last month.

Garland stepped off several court panels he was assigned to and stopped taking on new cases after he was tapped for the high court by President Barack Obama in March, following the unexpected death of Justice Antonin Scalia the previous month.

However, a calendar of upcoming oral arguments the D.C. Circuit updated on its website Monday shows Garland assigned to three cases to be heard Jan. 18, two days before Trump's inauguration.

A court official confirmed that Garland is expected to be regularly assigned to cases in the future.

The cases he picked up for next month include a labor dispute, a suit over alleged mistreatment of a minor in government custody, and a fight over public access to records involving the government's process for designating financial firms as "too big to fail" and, therefore, subject to additional federal regulation.

In the months following his nomination, Garland did not cease all of his work as chief judge of the D.C. Circuit. For example, he continued to designate judges to serve on certain campaign-finance related challenges. And he appeared at some ceremonial events.

There is no requirement for judicial nominees who are already judges to suspend their work while their nominations are pending. However, Supreme Court nominees usually take on a heavy schedule of meetings with senators and preparation for confirmation hearings. Garland took the meetings, but the confirmation prep work seemed unnecessary from the outset after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley vowed not to hold a hearing on Garland's nomination and to leave the vacancy to be filled by the winner in November's presidential election.

Technically, Garland's nomination to the Supreme Court remains pending. It is expected to be returned to the White House in early January when the Senate session formally ends before the newly-elected Congress is convened.