Judges Commons^™

What Books On Law Should Be, Richard A. Posner

Michigan Law Review

I have thought it might be useful to our profession, and appropriate to a foreword to a collection of reviews of newly published books on law, to set forth some ideas on how books can best serve members of the different branches of the legal profession — specifically judges, practicing lawyers, law students, and academic lawyers — plus persons outside the legal profession who are interested in law. I am not interested in which already published books should be retained and which discarded, but in what type of book about law should be written from this day forward. I will …

Some Kind Of Judge: Henry Friendly And The Law Of Federal Courts, Aaron P. Brecher

Michigan Law Review

Uberfans of the federal judiciary owe a lot to David Dorsen. His illuminating biography of Judge Henry Friendly is a fitting tribute to the contributions of a jurist that many consider to be among the finest judges never to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court. Judicial biography is a difficult genre to do well, and most authors choose to focus on Supreme Court justices. But Henry Friendly, Greatest Judge of His Era is an excellent source of information on Friendly’s life and, far more important, his views on the law and his relationships with some of the most fascinating figures …

Presumed Imminence: Judicial Risk Assessment In The Post-9/11 World, Avidan Y. Cover

Cardozo Law Review

Court opinions in the terrorism context are often distinguished by fact-finding that relates to risk assessment. These risk assessments - inherently policy decisions - are influenced by cultural cognition and by cognitive errors common to probability determinations, particularly those made regarding highly dangerous and emotional events. In a post-9/11 world, in which prevention and intelligence are prioritized over prosecution, courts are more likely to overstate the potential harm, neglect the probability, and presume the imminence of terrorist attacks. As a result, courts are apt to defer to the government and require less evidence in support of measures that curtail civil …

The Corporate Capture Of The Federal Courts: An Address From October 2, 2013, Elizabeth Warren

University of the District of Columbia Law Review

No abstract provided.

In Search Of Justice: An Examination Of The Appointments Of John G. Roberts And Samuel A. Alito To The U.S. Supreme Court And Their Impact On American Jurisprudence, Alberto R. Gonzales

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

During 2005, President George W. Bush appointed Federal Circuit Court Judges John G. Roberts and Samuel A. Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court. These appointments were the culmination of years of examination of the work, character, and temperament of both men commencing during the 2000 presidential transition. Our evaluation included face-to-face interviews; an analysis of judicial opinions, speeches, and writings; and conversation with friends, colleagues, and court experts. Based on this work, a select group of Bush Administration officials developed a set of predictors that formed the basis of our recommendation to President Bush that he elevate Circuit Court Judges …

Analogical Legal Reasoning: Theory And Evidence, Joshua C. Teitelbaum

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The paper offers a formal model of analogical legal reasoning and takes the model to data. Under the model, the outcome of a new case is a weighted average of the outcomes of prior cases. The weights capture precedential influence and depend on fact similarity (distance in fact space) and precedential authority (position in the judicial hierarchy). The empirical analysis suggests that the model is a plausible model for the time series of U.S. maritime salvage cases. Moreover, the results evince that prior cases decided by inferior courts have less influence than prior cases decided by superior courts.

How Roe V. Wade Was Written, David J. Garrow

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Justice Lewis F. Powell's Baffling Vote In Roe V. Wade, Samuel W. Calhoun

Washington and Lee Law Review

No abstract provided.

Positive Prognosis For Judges: A Look Into Judge-Directed Negotiations In Medical Malpractice Cases, Kristine Gamboa

Pepperdine Dispute Resolution Law Journal

The article examines the effectiveness of the judge-directed negotiation program in the Unified Court System of New York State under the analysis of various medical malpractice lawsuits, which plays a vital role in the legislational reform in the field of medical malpractice. It informs that Douglas McKeon, Judge of the Bronx County Supreme Court had developed the concept of judge-directed negotiations. It overviews the praises and criticisms behind the success of the program.

The Rule Of Law And The Judicial Function In The World Today, Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain

Notre Dame Law Review

The world’s oldest written constitution still in effect has many inspiring lines, but perhaps the one that most stirs the souls of the patriotic appears in Article 30. Delineating a familiar separation of powers, that Article forbids the legislative, executive, and judicial branches from swapping or mixing functions. “[T]o that end”—and here’s the line—“it may be a government of laws and not of men.” John Adams, the author of that line and most of the rest of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, penned those words in 1779, eight years before the adoption of the second oldest written constitution …

The Politics Of Statutory Interpretation, Margaret H. Lemos

Notre Dame Law Review

In a new book, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts, Justice Antonin Scalia and Bryan Garner describe and defend the textualist methodology for which Justice Scalia is famous. For Scalia and Garner, the normative appeal of textualism lies in its objectivity: by focusing on text, context, and canons of construction, textualism offers protection against ideological judging—a way to separate law from politics. Yet, as Scalia and Garner well know, textualism is widely regarded as a politically conservative methodology. The charge of conservative bias is more common than it is concrete, but it reflects the notion that textualism narrows the …

The Unitary Executive And The Plural Judiciary: On The Potential Virtues Of Decentralized Judicial Power, Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jr.

Notre Dame Law Review

The federal judiciary features a highly decentralized system of courts. The Supreme Court of the United States reviews only a few dozen cases each year. Meanwhile, regional U.S. courts of appeals operate independently of each other; district courts further divide and separate the exercise of federal judicial power. The role of the state courts in enforcing federal law further subdivides responsibility for the adjudication of federal law claims. Indeed, the Office of Chief Justice itself incorporates and reflects this vesting of the judicial power of the United States exclusively in collegial institutions—literally in a multiplicity of hands—effectively precluding its unilateral …

Judicial Independence And Social Welfare, Michael D. Gilbert

Michigan Law Review

Judicial independence is a cornerstone of American constitutionalism. It empowers judges to check the other branches of government and resolve cases impartially and in accordance with law. Yet independence comes with a hazard. Precisely because they are independent, judges can ignore law and pursue private agendas. For two centuries, scholars have debated those ideas and the underlying tradeoff: independence versus accountability. They have achieved little consensus, in part because independence raises difficult antecedent questions. We cannot decide how independent to make a judge until we agree on what a judge is supposed to do. That depends on one’s views about …

The Lock-In Effect Of Preliminary Injunctions, Kevin J. Lynch

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

Judges suffer from the same cognitive biases that afflict the rest of us. Judges use shortcuts to help them deal with the uncertainty and time pressure inherent in the judicial process. Judges should be aware of the conditions when those shortcuts lead to systemic biases in decision-making, and adjust legal standards in order to reduce or avoid such bias altogether.

One important bias that has been identified by economists and psychologists is the lock-in effect. The lock-in effect causes a decision-maker who must revisit an earlier decision to be locked-in to the earlier decision. The effect is particularly pronounced where …

Judicial Decisionmaking, Empathy, And The Limits Of Perception, Nicole Negowetti

Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Surgeons Or Scribes? The Role Of United States Court Of Appeals Law Clerks In "Appellate Triage", Todd C. Peppers, Micheal W. Giles, Bridget Tainer-Parkins

Scholarly Articles

Using original survey data, we explore how federal courts of appeals judges select and use their law clerks—a question that we answered in an earlier article about federal district court clerks. As with that first article, we do not intend to tackle such normative issues as whether courts of appeals law clerks possess too much influence over the judicial process or whether the selection criteria used by these judges is appropriate. What we will present, however, is descriptive data on the criteria that courts of appeals judges use to pick their law clerks as well as the tasks assigned to …

Judicial Assistants Or Junior Judges: The Hiring, Utilization, And Influence Of Law Clerks, Chad Oldfather, Todd C. Peppers

Scholarly Articles

Law clerks have been part of the American judicial system since 1882, when Supreme Court Justice Horace Gray hired a young Harvard Law School graduate named Thomas Russell to serve as his assistant. Justice Gray paid for his law clerks out of his own pocket until Congress authorized funds for the hiring of “stenographic clerks” in 1886. The Gray law clerks, however, were not mere stenographers. Justice Gray assigned them a host of legal and non-legal job duties. His clerks discussed the record and debated the attendant legal issues with Justice Gray prior to oral argument, conducted legal research, and …

Ghana’S Jury System On Trial, Dennis D. Adjei

Duke Law Master of Judicial Studies Theses

Civil cases in Ghana are tried by the bench. Criminal cases are also handled by bench trials, except for certain indictable offenses, which may be tried by a judge or jury. Not all serious offenses are tried by jury. And a trend is developing away from jury to bench trials. For example, treason is punishable by death, but the case is determined in a bench trial by three High Court Judges. Robbery, which had been an indictable offense, is now tried by either jury or bench trial at the discretion of the Attorney-General; and prosecutors consistently have been opting for …

Leadership And Management Training In The North Carolina Judicial System: An Examination Of Identified Need, James E. Hardin Jr.

Duke Law Master of Judicial Studies Theses

The purpose of this paper is to ask whether North Carolina public service lawyers and judges believe that their judicial districts perform with maximum efficiency or whether there could be functional improvement with leadership and management training for system leaders, and with the perceived need of such training, as articulated by these professionals, what a general training model might look like. A brief examination of the institutionally provided leadership and management training offered to system leaders shows sparse resources are expended to develop leaders and train them so that they have the skills to direct individual organizations and change the …

Dissent Aversion At The Court Of Justice Of The European Union, Marsha C. Erb

Duke Law Master of Judicial Studies Theses

The Court of Justice of the European Union has jurisdiction over 28 politically, culturally and linguistically disparate member states in the interpretation and application of EU law. Throughout its 60-year history, the Court has banned publication of the separate opinions of its judges and their voting records favouring instead brief unsigned unanimous decisions achieved by majority vote. The CJEU defends its practice in the interests of protecting judicial independence and its own authority and legitimacy. The Court’s critics call for greater transparency by publishing dissenting opinions along the lines of the United States Supreme Court. The CJEU is one of …