With this post, we begin our short review of some of the academic literature regarding panel effects.
Of course, the first question one encounters when taking a case before an appellate court is how one’s panel will be chosen. A majority of appellate courts state, either in their operating procedures or their rules, that appellate
Today, we’re reviewing the contents of our database, which includes every case decided by the Illinois Supreme Court since January 17, 1990. For every case, we’ve captured the following data points:
Official Reporter Citation
Docket Number
Case Name
Petitioner
Petitioner Governmental Entity (Y/N)
Respondent Governmental Entity (Y/N)
Source of Appellate Jurisdiction
Originating
Last time, we began our analysis by addressing the competing theories of judicial behavior. Formalism, the oldest theory, teaches that judicial decision making can be explained and predicted based upon the facts, the applicable law and precedent and judicial deliberations – and nothing more. But if formalism explains all of judicial decision making, then many
Our latest repost:
We begin our analysis by addressing the foundation of the entire body of data analytic scholarship on appellate judging: competing theories of judicial decision making.
The oldest theory by far is generally known in the literature as “formalism.” This is the theory we all learned in law school, according to which every
Our short series of contextual reposts continues:
Although the state Supreme Courts have not attracted anything near the level of study from academics engaged in empirical legal studies that the U.S. Supreme Courts and Federal Circuits have a number of different researchers have attempted to compare how influential the various state courts are for the
I’m always surprised when I encounter litigators who dismiss litigation analytics as a passing fad. In fact, as shown in the reprint post below, it’s a century-long academic enterprise which has produced many hundreds of studies conclusively proving through tens of thousands of pages of analysis the value of data analytics in better understanding how
The Illinois Supreme Court Review recently marked its sixth anniversary. In April, the California Supreme Court Review turns five.
So I thought it was time for a first: cross-posted reprints from the earliest days of the blogs. My early attempts to provide context for the work and to answer the question I often heard in
For the past two weeks, we’ve been reviewing the Illinois Supreme Court’s recent history with amicus briefs. Today, we turn our attention to the criminal and quasi-criminal docket between 2008 and 2015.
Amicus briefs were far more common in civil cases than in criminal matters between 2008 and 2015 – just as was the case
Last week, we began our examination of the Illinois Supreme Court’s experience since 2000 with amicus briefs, analyzing the years 2000 through 2007 on both the civil and criminal side of the docket. This week, we’ll turn our attention to the Court’s experience between 2008 and 2015.
In Table 352 below, we report the total
Yesterday, we began our review of the Illinois Supreme Court’s experience with amicus briefs with the data for civil cases between 2000 and 2007.
Amicus briefs were far less common on the criminal side of the docket during these early years of our period. The Court accepted three amicus briefs in non-unanimous criminal decisions in