While there are a bewildering number of court actions deriving from the still undecided presidential election, the most important one is before the Florida Supreme Court.
This is the appeal by Vice-President Al Gore against the dismissal of his case on Monday in the state circuit court, where he was seeking to have about 12,000 disputed ballots recounted by hand in Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.
The sweeping nature of the dismissal of the Gore action by Judge Sanders Sauls will make it difficult but not impossible for the Vice-President to have the judgment overturned by the Florida Supreme Court.
If Mr Gore's appeal fails, there is general agreement that he will then concede the presidential election to Governor George W. Bush, even if several other court cases involving the Florida election are still running.
If the Florida Supreme Court overturns the lower court judgment on a point of law, it could then order a recount of the disputed ballots.
This would be good news for Mr Gore, but there would be a doubt if recounts could be carried out before December 12th, when Florida's representatives to the Electoral College must be formally selected.
To avoid such an eventuality, the Florida state legislature, which is controlled by Republicans, is getting ready to pass a law to appoint the 25 electors itself rather than risk there being no electors from Florida at all.
If this happened, Mr Gore would have a majority in the Electoral College when it meets to elect the next president on December 18th.
That is why Florida is the decisive factor in this election and why its Supreme Court now plays a vital role.
There are other court cases in the pipeline, two of which could cause problems for Mr Bush. These are actions taken by Democratic activists in Seminole and Martin Counties and involve absentee ballots.
In Seminole, a Democratic voter is asking a court to have all 15,000 absentee ballots thrown out. If this were to happen, Mr Gore would get a net pick-up of 4,800 votes, more than enough to overtake Mr Bush's certified lead of 930 votes.
The Democrat complains that Republican officials were illegally allowed to complete applications for absentee ballots from Republicans by filling in their missing registration numbers.
There appears to be clear evidence that this is what happened, but Republicans point out that no changes were made to the ballots themselves, and therefore only a technicality is involved.
Mr Gore has not joined himself to this action as it would contradict his slogan that "every vote should be counted".
Mr Bush's legal team is concerned, however, and has unsuccessfully tried to have the judge on the case removed as she was passed over for promotion to a higher court recently by Governor Jeb Bush, brother of the presidential candidate.
Other pending court cases include:
11th US Appeals Court in Atlanta: This is hearing an action by Mr Bush to have the hand counts, which Mr Gore demanded in several Florida counties, thrown out. This case, which had a hearing yesterday, may now be moot or irrelevant because events have moved on, but Mr Bush's lawyers are keeping it running as an insurance policy.
US Supreme Court: The highest court in the land on Monday asked the Florida Supreme Court to clarify its ruling which allowed Mr Gore to have extended hand recounts. Mr Bush had appealed the ruling to the nine justices in Washington, claiming it was contrary to federal law and the US Constitution.
The Florida Supreme Court is now dealing with this request for clarification.
Federal District Court, Pensacola: In this Florida court, Republicans are suing election authorities in seven counties for rejecting undated overseas ballots.
Many of these are believed to be from military personnel who could have intended to vote for Mr Bush. About 250 ballots are believed to be involved.