The Costs of Judging Judges by the Numbers
13 Pages Posted: 15 Jul 2011 Last revised: 3 Oct 2011
Date Written: July 6, 2010
Abstract
This essay discredits current empirical models that are designed to “judge” or rank appellate judges, and then assesses the harms of propagating such models. First, the essay builds on the discussion of empirical models by arguing that (1) the judicial virtues that the legal empiricists set out to measure have little bearing on what actually makes for a good judge; and (2) even if they did, the empiricists’ chosen variables have not measured those virtues accurately. The essay then concludes that by generating unreliable claims about the relative quality of judges, these studies mislead both decision-makers and the public, degrade discussions of judging, and could, if taken seriously, detrimentally alter the behavior of judges themselves.
Keywords: appellate judges
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation
Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?
Recommended Papers
-
The Disappearance that Wasn't? 'Random Variation' in the Number of Women Supreme Court Clerks
By David H. Kaye and Joseph L. Gastwirth
-
By Nancy Leong
-
Exploring Inequality in the Corporate Law Firm Apprenticeship: Doing the Time, Finding the Love
By Bryant Garth and Joyce S. Sterling
-
Distinguishing Judges: An Empirical Ranking of Judicial Quality in the U.S. Court of Appeals
-
By Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati, ...
-
Judicial Incentives and Performance at Lower Courts: Evidence from Slovenian Judge-Level Data