Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Ideology, Status, And The Differential Success Of Direct Parties Before The Supreme Court, Reginald S. Sheehan, William Mishler, Donald R. Songer

Faculty Publications

A substantial literature on lower federal courts and state courts suggests that the "haves" usually come out ahead in litigation because they possess superior resources for it and they reap advantages from their repeat player status. We investigate the success of 10 categories of litigants before the Warren, Burger, and Rehnquist Courts to determine whether the resources or experience of litigants has effects on Supreme Court outcomes paralleling those found in the courts below. While different categories of litigants are found to have very different rates of success, those differences do not consistently favor litigants with greater resources. A time …