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Jurisprudence Commons

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Full-Text Articles in Jurisprudence

Law's Complexity: A Primer, J.B. Ruhl Jan 2008

Law's Complexity: A Primer, J.B. Ruhl

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

The legal system. It rolls easily off the tongues of lawyers like a single word - the legal system - as if we all know what it means. But what is the legal system? How does it behave? What are its boundaries? What is its input and output? How will it look in one year? In ten years? How should we use it to make change in some other aspect of social life? Why do answers to these questions make the legal system seem so complex? Would assembling a cogent, descriptively accurate theory of what makes the legal system complex …


"The Threes": Re-Imagining Supreme Court Decisionmaking, Tracey E. George, Chris Guthrie Jan 2008

"The Threes": Re-Imagining Supreme Court Decisionmaking, Tracey E. George, Chris Guthrie

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

In this Essay--the first in a series of essays designed to reimagine the Supreme Court--we argue that Congress should authorize the Court to adopt, in whole or part, panel decision making... With respect to the prospect of different Court outcomes, we demonstrate empirically in this Essay that the vast majority of cases decided during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries--including "Grutter", "Roe", and "Bush v. Gore" --would have come out the same way if the Court had decided them in panels rather than as a full Court.


Chief Judges: The Limits Of Attitudinal Theory And Possible Paradox Of Managerial Judging, Tracey E. George, Albert H. Yoon Jan 2008

Chief Judges: The Limits Of Attitudinal Theory And Possible Paradox Of Managerial Judging, Tracey E. George, Albert H. Yoon

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Chief judges wield power. Among other things, they control judicial assignments, circulate petitions to their colleagues, and manage internal requests and disputes. When exercising this power, do chiefs seek to serve as impartial court administrators or do they attempt to manufacture case outcomes that reflect their political beliefs? Because chiefs exercise their power almost entirely outside public view, no one knows. No one sees the chief judge change the composition of a panel before it is announced or delay consideration of a petition for en banc review or favor the requests of some colleagues while ignoring those of others. Chiefs …