What Is So Special about Specialized Courts in the United States?

Abstract

Courts and their judges are typically thought of as generalist in orientation. Yet we continue to witness in recent years a growing trend toward the creation of specialized courts that rely on judges with technical and subject-matter expertise. It is a trend increasingly found in the United States and around the world. In this chapter, we examine the nature of specialized courts and their growing popularity. We bring out the “special” in specialized courts by analyzing the power of their structural characteristics and current state of research and theoretical developments on specialized courts. We analyze the therapeutic jurisprudence movement in federal and state courts as one of the most exciting developments in judicial politics in recent years. Finally, we discuss concerns about whether specialized courts pose a threat to traditional courts. We end by discussing the possible direction of future work on judicial specialization.

Keywords: Specialized Courts, Therapeutic Jurisprudence, Judicial Specialization, Subject-Matter Expertise

JEL Classification: K, K3, Z10, Z18, I, H