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Full-Text Articles in Law
Choosing Justices: How Presidents Decide, Joel K. Goldstein
Choosing Justices: How Presidents Decide, Joel K. Goldstein
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Presidents play the critical role in determining who will serve as justices on the Supreme Court and their decisions inevitably influence constitutional doctrine and judicial behavior long after their terms have ended. Notwithstanding the impact of these selections, scholars have focused relatively little attention on how presidents decide who to nominate. This article contributes to the literature in the area by advancing three arguments. First, it adopts an intermediate course between the works which tend to treat the subject historically without identifying recurring patterns and those which try to reduce the process to empirical formulas which inevitably obscure considerations shaping …
Leading The Court: Studies In Influence As Chief Justice, Joel K. Goldstein
Leading The Court: Studies In Influence As Chief Justice, Joel K. Goldstein
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Chief Justice Roberts has now completed five years of what is likely to be a lengthy tenure in the Court’s center seat. The quality of his institutional leadership, like that of his predecessors, resists confident contemporary assessment to a unique degree among principal offices of American government inasmuch as much of what a Chief Justice does is invisible to all but a relatively few observers, most or all of whom generally remain discreetly silent about such matters. Nonetheless, history counsels that the professional and interpersonal skill which a Chief Justice displays may substantially affect the Supreme Court and the quality …
Regulatory Adjudication, Marcia L. Mccormick
Regulatory Adjudication, Marcia L. Mccormick
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Calls for increased regulation are flying fast and furious these days. We use regulation in the United States to prevent harm that various kinds of activities might cause and also to create positive external benefits that those activities could yield, but might not without incentives. Most regulatory programs in the United States provide a blend of measures designed to create these positive external benefits, promote good practices in the industry, prevent harms, and provide those harmed with remedies. At a time in which we contemplate new ways to regulate to deal with the crises of the day and prevent the …
Setting The Size Of The Supreme Court, F. Andrew Hessick, Samuel P. Jordan
Setting The Size Of The Supreme Court, F. Andrew Hessick, Samuel P. Jordan
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As with any institutional feature, the size of the Supreme Court should be informed by a definition of functional goals. This article describes how the current size of the Supreme Court is largely untethered from any such definition, and it begins the process of understanding how size and Court performance might interact. To do so, it identifies a list of institutional goals for the Supreme Court and explores how changing the size of the Court promotes or obstructs the attainment of those goals. Given that the Court's institutional goals are numerous and occasionally in tension, there is no definitive answer …
Early Panel Announcement, Settlement And Adjudication, Samuel P. Jordan
Early Panel Announcement, Settlement And Adjudication, Samuel P. Jordan
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Federal appellate courts have significant discretion to set the internal policies that govern the appeals process, and they have used that discretion to institute policies designed to combat increasing caseloads. This Article takes a close look at one such policy: early announcement of panel composition in the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. In stark contrast to every other circuit, the D.C. Circuit announces panel composition to litigants in civil appeals well in advance of oral argument, and it does so at least in part to encourage settlement and control the court's workload. This Article concludes that although there are indications …
The Equality Paradise: Paradoxes Of The Law's Power To Advance Equality, Marcia L. Mccormick
The Equality Paradise: Paradoxes Of The Law's Power To Advance Equality, Marcia L. Mccormick
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This paper, written for Texas Wesleyan Law School's Gloucester Conference, ¿Too Pure an Air: Law and the Quest for Freedom, Justice, and Equality,¿ is a brief exploration of a broader project. Every civil rights movement must struggle with how to allocate scarce resources to accomplish the broadest change possible. This paper compares the legal and political strategies of the Black rights movement and the women's rights movement in the United States, comparing both the strategy choices and the results. These two movement followed essentially the same strategies. Where they have attained success and where each has failed demonstrates the limits …