Gathered behind closed doors for the first conference of the new term, the nine justices shook hands, traded a few words about their summer vacations and sat down to decide on the 1,701 appeals that came in while they were away.

It didn't take long.

In a rapid-fire series of votes, they selected a dozen or so cases for full hearings and written opinions. Then, in large part because of negative recommendations from young law clerks, they rejected the rest.

After a few hours, they adjourned. Other appeals will be considered by the justices beginning this month at conferences every Friday of the term.

As the civic textbooks say, in America you can appeal your case all the way to the Supreme Court. And the high court is free to decide which cases and legal questions are worthy of its time and attention.

What the textbooks do not say is that, chances are, the justices will not even look at your appeal before dismissing it.

For the justices, the first fall conference sets the agenda for the year ahead. Two years ago, the justices announced they would decide on the constitutionality of doctor-assisted suicide. The year before, it was the legal status of federal affirmative action.

But for many lawyers and their clients - the first fall conference is both highly anticipated and ultimately disappointing. Hundreds of lawyers labor over their appeal petitions but fewer than one in 100 wins a full review.

"It's a mysterious process but I can tell there is a lot of energy devoted to getting in that door," says Washington attorney Theodore J. Boutrous Jr.

Big law firms often charge $30,000 - and sometimes more than $100,000 - to write an appeal petition. Yet getting the court's attention has become much harder. While the number of appeals has risen gradually to nearly 7,000 annually, in recent years the justices have agreed to decide fewer than 100 cases during a term, down from 150 in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In that earlier period, then Chief Justice Warren Burger complained that the court was overworked and understaffed. The first conference - known in those days as the dreaded "long conferenceÓ - often dragged on for a full week as the Justices haggled over hundreds of cases. In despair, Burger called for the creation of a junior Supreme Court to relieve the workload.

Since replacing Burger in 1986, Chief Justice William Rehnquist has steadily whittled down the decision docket. He has insisted that the court focus on only major legal questions and ignore the rest.

With Rehnquist at the helm, the justices move quickly and efficiently -too efficiently, some say- to sift through the huge pile of pending appeals.

"They are interested in managing federal law, not doing justice in individual cases," said Thomas Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who has made a specialty of analyzing what cases attract the court's attention.

So, what does it take to win a review by the high court?

A "split in the circuits," Goldstein said, meaning contrary decisions by different federal appeals courts on the same legal issue. "That is the primary factor. They want uniformity in (federal) law," he said.

Suppose the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston rules that a taxpayer can take a deduction for a home office even though he has an office elsewhere and later the U.S. Circuit Court in Chicago rejects the same claim. It may not sound like a fascinating legal issue but the Supreme Court would be likely to take up the matter when one of the cases is appealed.

However, if taxpayers say they were penalized by the Internal Revenue Service after following bad advice from their tax adviser - and several pending appeals make just that claim - the high court almost surely will dismiss the appeal.

According to former law clerks, the justices rarely read the petitions. They rely instead on memos from clerks who do the initial screening and describe the key issues raised in the appeals. In most instances, an appeal is doomed if the clerk recommends that it be denied.

"It's really an extraordinary process. Lawyers go to such great effort to craft these petitions, but they are often reduced to a four-page memo from a recent law school grad," Goldstein said.

Each year, a new crop of clerks arrives in July and they are especially cautious at first in recommending that the high court hear a case.

"There's nothing more humiliating than recommending a grant (of review) and having the court vote to deny," one former clerk said.

The result, according to some lawyers, is a strong "bias against grants," especially early in the term.

"It's frustrating. How do you explain to a client that his case has been rejected by a 25-year old law clerk?" asked Carter G. Phillips, a veteran Supreme Court advocate.

Despite the court's stingy attitude, there is no shortage of new appeals covering a vast spectrum of law. On average, about 125 arrive every week throughout the year.

Many are business disputes. One pending appeal has composer Andrew Lloyd Webber asking the court to throw out a copyright infringement suit filed by a folk music singer who says "The Phantom of the Opera" was patterned after his tune.

The Wal-Mart Stores have appealed the case of Clyde Griffith, a former sales clerk who won government disability benefits because of a back injury and sued the retailer for discrimination based on his disability. In its appeal, the discount chain wants the court to rule that people who are deemed totally disabled cannot sue for discrimination because they cannot work.

Often, the most far-reaching appeals come from interest groups.

AureliaDavis sued a Georgia school district because her daughter was repeatedly harassed at school and even contemplated suicide, yet school officials refused to intervene. She lost, but the National Women's Law Center has appealed and urged the justices to take up the question of whether schools can be held liable for student-to-student sexual harassment. Clintonadministration lawyers also urged that the appeal be granted.

The volume of appeals is daunting but the justices and their clerks began going through them in the late summer when the court was officially in recess.

A few weeks ago, Rehnquist sent his colleagues a list of the appeals that he believes should be discussed. The other justices were free to add cases to that list, but court officials said that fewer than one in 10 appeals makes the cut.