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Publications (34)
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
The Elevator Effect: Contact and Collegiality in the American Judiciary presents a comprehensive, first-of-its-kind examination of the importance of interpersonal relationships among judges for judicial decision-making and legal development. Regarding decision-making, the authors demonstrate that more frequent interpersonal contact among judges dim...
Even when women and people of color achieve positions of political power, institutional norms may combine with social constructions of difference to create a system in which power is distributed disproportionately. Such a pattern is evident in the US courts of appeals. Each case is resolved by a panel of three judges who also decide whether the opi...
Using a unique and vast dataset and new measures derived from natural language processing, we investigate the flow of information to the Supreme Court via briefs. Our study provides an opportunity to consider the often-nuanced role of information in policymaking. Building on prior work, we contribute in a number of important ways to our understandi...
Why are some opinions widely discussed while others remain obscure? We theorize that opinions that can be understood efficiently are discussed, expanded, and contracted more frequently. Additionally, more persuasive precedents tend to be discussed and expanded more regularly, while less persuasive precedents are narrowed more often. These effects s...
Dissenting opinions are common in the US Supreme Court even though they take time and effort, risk infuriating colleagues, and have no precedential value. In spite of these drawbacks, dissents can potentially contribute to future legal development. We theorize that dissenting justices who use more memorable language are more successful in achieving...
Most decisions about policy adoption require preference aggregation, which makes it difficult to determine how and when an individual can influence policy change. Examining how frequently a judge is cited offers insight into this question. Drawing upon the psychological concept of social identity, we suggest that shared group memberships can accoun...
While authorship assignment has been studied extensively in the US Supreme Court, relatively little is known about such decisions in the intermediate federal courts. Moreover, what we know about circuit courts relates only to published opinions (those which constitute precedent under the doctrine of stare decisis and, thus, influence policy). Littl...
Scholars have observed that federal circuit judges’ voting behavior can be influenced by even a single colleague on a three-judge panel. I explore whether such forces extend beyond voting to affect how circuit judges use binding precedent to develop circuit law, by examining whether the role of ideology is dampened when a judge writes for a panel t...
The quest for empirical evidence of strategic judicial behavior has produced mixed results. This study finds such evidence in the decisions made while crafting an opinion. Central to any opinion is which precedents are cited and whether their scope is limited (negative treatment) or expanded (positive treatment). I look for evidence of strategic an...
Judges sitting on three-judge panels in the U.S. Courts of Appeals make decisions under the shadow of potential review by supervising courts, the full circuit sitting en banc and the Supreme Court. Review is more likely for published decisions, particularly when a dissent is present. Unpublished decisions do not have binding precedential status. Th...
Theories of legislative policy diffusion are well formed and extensively tested, but scholars know far less about the diffusion of legal policy and reasoning. Three decades ago, Caldeira’s “The Transmission of Legal Precedent: A Study of State Supreme Courts” examined this topic, but the intervening decades have been marked by considerable changes...
I examine the impact federal appellate courts have on state policy diffusion through the use of computational text analysis. Using a dyadic framework, I model the impact courts have on the decision to adopt a policy and, if adopted, how much text to borrow directly from another state's preexisting law. A court decision ruling a statute unconstituti...
Existing evidence of law constraining judicial behavior is subject to serious endogeneity concerns. Federal circuit courts offer an opportunity to gain leverage on this problem. A precedent is legally binding within its own circuit but only persuasive in other circuits. Legal constraint exists to the extent that use of binding precedents is less in...
Supported by numerous empirical studies on judicial hierarchies and panel effects, Positive Political Theory (PPT) suggests that judges engage in strategic use of opinion content—to further the policy outcomes preferred by the decision-making court. In this study, we employ linguistic theory to study the strategic use of opinion content at a granul...
A large share of the more than $5.5 trillion in private pension plan assets is held in certain types of indirect investment vehicles. If those vehicles file their own annual return with the Department of Labor they are called "direct filing entities" (or DFEs), and pension plans that invest in them are excused from providing detailed information co...
Supported by numerous empirical studies on judicial hierarchies and panel effects, Positive Political Theory (PPT) suggests that judges engage in strategic use of opinion content—to further the policy outcomes preferred by the decision-making court. In this study, we employ linguistic theory to study the strategic use of opinion content at a granul...
There is good reason to believe that judges behave strategically. Many aspects of such strate-gic behavior have been considered. In recent years, there has been important work consider-ing the influence of panel composition on outcomes and rules through mechanisms such as whistleblowing. Nevertheless, in the study of strategic behavior generally an...
