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Full-Text Articles in Law

How Should We Study District Judge Decision-Making?, Pauline T. Kim, Margo Schlanger, Christina L. Boyd, Andrew D. Martin Jan 2009

How Should We Study District Judge Decision-Making?, Pauline T. Kim, Margo Schlanger, Christina L. Boyd, Andrew D. Martin

Articles

Understanding judicial decision-making requires attention to the specific institutional settings in which judges operate. The choices available to judges are determined not only by the law and facts of the case but also by procedural context. The incentives and constraints shaping judges’ decision-making will vary depending on, for example, whether they have a life-appointment or are elected; whether they hear cases alone or with colleagues; and whether and under what circumstances their decisions might be altered, overturned, or undone by the actions of others. The basic insight that the institutional context matters has led to increasingly sophisticated studies of how …


Pleading And The Dilemmas Of “General Rules”, Stephen B. Burbank Jan 2009

Pleading And The Dilemmas Of “General Rules”, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

This article comments on Professor Geoffrey Miller’s article about pleading under Tellabs and goes on (1) to use Tellabs, Bell Atlantic Corp. v Twombly, and Iqbal v. Hasty (in which the Court has granted review) to illustrate the limits of, and costs created by, certain foundational assumptions and operating principles that are associated with the Rules Enabling Act’s requirement of “general rules,” and (2) more generally, to illustrate the costs of the complex procedural system that we have created. Thus, for instance, the argument that the standards emerging from Twombly should be confined to antitrust conspiracy cases confronts the foundational …