early 21st century, the Court typically has fifty to sixty members. As with any other general court, Supreme Court justices are professional judges; they have graduated from law school, done several months of internship-type practical work in an actual courthouse, received four years of post-graduate training, and passed a special exam. Supreme Court justices cannot be members of a cabinet or legislative body. The responsibility for appointing justices is vested in the president of Austria, but the president can and usually does delegate this power to the minister of justice. The Court maintains a special personnel committee () that provides the minister with a shortlist of three candidates in the event of a vacancy. In theory, the minister may appoint any Austrian legally qualified to sit on the bench (and not excluded by the constitution's rudimentary incompatibility provisions). In practice, the minister dependably picks one of the three candidates nominated by the Court. Process For the purpose of actually trying cases, the Court is partitioned into 18 panels () of five members each. As everywhere in the Austrian court system, panels are subject to a fixed and specific apportionment of responsibilities (). The fixed apportionment is meant to prevent the Cabinet from influencing outcomes by hand-picking a panel sympathetic to its perspective. One panel exclusively deals with appeals decisions reached by arbitration tribunals; another panel hears appeals against antitrust verdicts handed down by the Vienna higher regional court, which has specialist exclusive jurisdiction over all Austrian antitrust cases. A third panel handles disciplinary proceedings and other disputes internal to the judiciary. Of the remaining fifteen panels, ten deal with regular civil cases and five with criminal trials. A new case that comes before the Court is first assigned to the relevant panel. One of the members of the panel is appointed case manager (). The case manager directs the preliminary research. An office staffed with about 30 to 40 researchers and other assistants is attached to the Court to aid case managers in this task. Once the preliminary investigation is complete, the panel convenes, hears the official presentation of case and research by the case manager, deliberates, and votes. The case manager votes first, the presiding justice votes last; other members vote in order of decreasing seniority. In cases that are trivial or routine, the panel is permitted to meet as a panel of just three (). If a panel