Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
- Discipline
Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Law
Evaluating Judges And Judicial Institutions: Reorienting The Perspective, Mitu Gulati, David E. Klein, David F. Levi
Evaluating Judges And Judicial Institutions: Reorienting The Perspective, Mitu Gulati, David E. Klein, David F. Levi
Faculty Scholarship
Empirical scholarship on judges, judging, and judicial institutions, a staple in political science, is becoming increasingly popular in law schools. We propose that this scholarship can be improved and enhanced by greater collaboration between empirical scholars, legal theorists, and the primary subjects of the research, the judges. We recently hosted a workshop that attempted to move away from the conventional mode of involving judges and theorists in empirical research, where they serve as commentators on empirical studies that they often see as reductionist and mis-focused. Instead, we had the judges and theorists set the discussion agenda for the empiricists by …
The Costs Of Judging Judges By The Numbers, Marin K. Levy, Kate Stith, Jose A. Cabranes
The Costs Of Judging Judges By The Numbers, Marin K. Levy, Kate Stith, Jose A. Cabranes
Faculty Scholarship
This essay discredits current empirical models that are designed to “judge” or rank appellate judges, and then assesses the harms of propagating such models. First, the essay builds on the discussion of empirical models by arguing that (1) the judicial virtues that the legal empiricists set out to measure have little bearing on what actually makes for a good judge; and (2) even if they did, the empiricists’ chosen variables have not measured those virtues accurately. The essay then concludes that by generating unreliable claims about the relative quality of judges, these studies mislead both decision-makers and the public, degrade …
Judicial Ability And Securities Class Actions, Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi, Eric A. Posner
Judicial Ability And Securities Class Actions, Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi, Eric A. Posner
Faculty Scholarship
We exploit a new data set of judicial rulings on motions in order to investigate the relationship between judicial ability and judicial outcomes. The data set consists of federal district judges’ rulings on motions to dismiss, to approve the lead plaintiff, and to approve attorneys’ fees in securities class actions cases, and also judges’ decisions to remove themselves from cases. We predict that higher-quality judges, as measured by citations, affirmance rates, and similar criteria, are more likely to dismiss cases, reject lead plaintiffs, reject attorneys’ fees, and retain cases rather than hand them over to other judges. Our results are …
Talking Judges, Mitu Gulati, Jack Knight
Talking Judges, Mitu Gulati, Jack Knight
Faculty Scholarship
What kinds of empirical questions about themselves and their colleagues on the bench are judges interested in asking? This was the topic of a recent conference at the Duke Law School. Our Essay reflects on the ways in which the judges at this conference and at a prior one talked about the empirical study of their community. To put it mildly, most of the judges were not fans of the empirical research. Our interest in this Essay is not, however, in responding to the judicial criticisms. Rather it is in drawing insights about how judges view themselves and their profession …
Professionals Or Politicians: The Uncertain Empirical Case For An Elected Rather Than Appointed Judiciary, Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi, Eric A. Posner
Professionals Or Politicians: The Uncertain Empirical Case For An Elected Rather Than Appointed Judiciary, Mitu Gulati, Stephen J. Choi, Eric A. Posner
Faculty Scholarship
Conventional wisdom holds that appointed judges are superior to elected judges because appointed judges are less vulnerable to political pressure. However, there is little empirical evidence for this view. Using a data set of state high court opinions,we construct measures for three aspects of judicial performance: effort, skill, and independence. The measures permit a test of the relationship between performance and the four primary methods of state high court judge selection: partisan election, non-partisan election, merit plan, and appointment. Appointed judges write higher quality opinions than elected judges do, but elected judges write more opinions, and the evidence suggests that …