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Full-Text Articles in Law

Political Appointments And Outcomes In Federal District Courts, Ryan Hübert, Ryan W. Copus Apr 2022

Political Appointments And Outcomes In Federal District Courts, Ryan Hübert, Ryan W. Copus

Faculty Works

Using an original data set of around 70,000 civil rights cases heard by nearly 200 judges, we study the effect of presidential appointments to federal district courts. We provide the first causal estimates of whether lawsuits end differently depending on their assignment to either a Democratic or a Republican appointed judge. We show Republican appointees cause fewer settlements and more dismissals, favoring defendants by around 5 percentage points. We estimate a similarly sized effect for a sample of civil rights appeals heard in the Ninth Circuit, raising questions about the conventional wisdom that politics matters more at higher levels of …


Covid-19'S Impact On Families, Lawyers, And Courts: An Annotated Bibliography, Allen K. Rostron Jan 2022

Covid-19'S Impact On Families, Lawyers, And Courts: An Annotated Bibliography, Allen K. Rostron

Faculty Works

No abstract provided.


28 U.S.C. § 1331 Jurisdiction In The Roberts Court: A Rights-Inclusive Approach, Lumen N. Mulligan Jan 2022

28 U.S.C. § 1331 Jurisdiction In The Roberts Court: A Rights-Inclusive Approach, Lumen N. Mulligan

Faculty Works

In this symposium piece, I argue that the Roberts Court, whether intentionally or not, is crafting a 28 U.S.C. § 1331 doctrine that is more solicitous of congressional control than the Supreme Court’s past body of jurisdictional law. Further, I contend that this movement toward greater congressional control is a positive step for the court. In making this argument, I review the foundations of the famous Holmes test for taking § 1331 jurisdiction and the legal positivist roots for that view. I discuss the six key Roberts Court cases that demonstrate a movement away from a simple Holmes test and …