# Circuit Split A circuit split is a disagreement among the [[United States Courts of Appeals]] over how to interpret the same federal law — one circuit reads a statute or the Constitution one way, another reads it the opposite way, and identical conduct becomes legal in one part of the country and illegal in another. Because no court of appeals binds another, only the Supreme Court can resolve the conflict and restore a uniform national rule. Resolving splits is the Court's core reason for existing as a discretionary tribunal, and an entrenched split is by far the strongest predictor that the Court will grant a [[Writ of Certiorari]] — Supreme Court Rule 10 lists a conflict among the circuits first among the "compelling reasons" for review. Litigants and advocacy organizations sometimes *engineer* splits, deliberately relitigating a losing issue in a friendlier circuit to manufacture the conflict that forces the issue up. The role of the split as the primary driver of review is mapped in [[How a Case Reaches the Supreme Court]].