Lady Justice
Judge Gender Peer Effects in the Courthouse
Ozkan Eren & Naci Mocan
American Law and Economics Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
We investigate whether consequential decisions made by judges are impacted by the gender composition of these judges’ peer group. Using the universe of decisions on juvenile defendants in each courthouse in a Southern state over 15 years, we estimate two-way fixed effects models leveraging random assignment of cases to judges and variations in judge peer composition generated by judicial turnover. The results show that an increase in the proportion of female peers in the courthouse causes a rise in individual judges’ propensity to incarcerate, and an increase in prison time. This effect is driven by the behavior of female judges. We examine the sensitivity of our findings to heterogeneous-robust difference-in-differences estimators for continuous and nonabsorbing treatments.
Judicial Perceptions of Legal Difficulty: An Empirical Inquiry
Brian Sheppard, Michael Coenen & Andrew Moshirnia
Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
The law often asks judges to determine whether a violation is clearly established or whether legal language clearly or unambiguously supports a position. It demands that litigants not raise arguments or claims that would be easily dismissed. And for their part legal scholars have relied on the distinction between easy and hard cases as they delineate the concept of law itself. Yet, few have empirically studied assessments of legal difficulty. Here, we present the results of two studies that provide insight into the reliability of such assessments from laypeople and actual judges. For both populations, our key finding was this: assessments of case difficulty are highly predictive of the vote breakdown in a case; that is, the larger the size of a majority coalition, the lower the average difficulty rating registered by the members of that coalition (and, conversely, the smaller the size of a minority coalition, the higher the rating registered by its members). These results suggest that, while assessments of case difficulty are tied to case outcomes, they are a complex signal. Experiencing the feeling that a case is unusually difficult is not necessarily an indication that you are dealing with a 50/50 case, as is commonly assumed. Instead, it may be an indication that your position on the merits would be decisively rejected by the vast majority of others confronting the same question.
Does the public want the police to stop, stopping? An experimental look at the impact of outcome data on public perceptions of police discretionary traffic stops
Hunter Boehme et al.
Journal of Experimental Criminology, December 2025, Pages 1137-1154
Methods: We distributed an original online survey experiment randomly assigning respondents (N = 4740) into either the (1) contraband condition, (2) disparity condition, or (3) the control condition.
Results: In comparison to the control condition, the contraband condition significantly increased respondent support of discretionary traffic stops as a crime-fighting tool. Black respondents assigned the contraband treatment were significantly more likely to support the use of discretionary traffic stops compared to Black respondents assigned the control condition.
Wyoming Is Haunted by Ghost Guardianships: File Reviews Show State and System-Wide Denials of Due Process
Joathan Gerald Martinis & Melissa Theriault
Journal of Disability Policy Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
Research and scholarship find that the use of guardianship is increasing across the United States despite developments in law, legislation, and policy intended to protect individual rights and promote less restrictive alternatives. In Wyoming, there has long been talk of “ghost guardianships” -- where adults are ordered into guardianship without being provided the due process rights and protections guaranteed by state law. This article presents the initial results of our review of all guardianship cases filed in Wyoming in 2021 to determine whether ghost guardianships are a widespread, system-wide problem. Our review finds that a substantial majority of Wyoming adult involuntary guardianship cases violated the due process rights of the proposed ward. In this article, we summarize research and scholarship into the potential dangers of guardianship and present our methodology, findings, and recommendations for ways Wyoming and other states may protect the rights of people facing guardianship.
The Blackstone ratio, modified
Murat Mungan
Journal of Theoretical Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
In his discussion of evidentiary policies, Blackstone famously noted that ‘it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer’ (Blackstone 1769). The conventional wisdom among lawyers, judges as well as academics holds that accepting this statement as a maxim necessitates the adoption of pro-defendant evidentiary rules. It is also commonly believed that costs associated with false convictions being greater than those associated with failures to punish offenders due to the presence of punishment costs provides a utilitarian rationale for Blackstonian principles. After formalizing Blackstone ratios (either as marginal rates of substitution or, alternatively, as the ratio between quantities of errors), I show these conventional views are incorrect. I then propose a simple modification of the Blackstone ratio, which shifts the focus from aggregate outcomes to consequences for individuals within the criminal justice system. This modification better aligns commonly held views about the Blackstone ratio with its actual implications and justifications.
Grading Machines: Can AI Exam-Grading Replace Law Professors?
Kevin Cope et al.
University of Virginia Working Paper, December 2025
Abstract:
In the past few years, large language models (LLMs) have achieved significant technical advances, such that legal-advocacy organizations are increasingly adopting them as complements to — or substitutes for — lawyers and other human experts. Several studies have examined LLMs' performance in taking law school exams, finding mixed results. Yet there have been no published studies systematically analyzing LLMs' competence at one of law professors' chief responsibilities: grading law school exams. This paper presents results of an analysis of how LLMs perform in evaluating student responses to legal analysis questions of the kind typically administered in law school exams. The underlying data come from exams in four subjects administered at top-30 U.S. law schools. Unlike some projects in computer or data science, our goal is not to design a new LLM that minimizes error or maximizes agreement with human graders. Rather, we seek to determine whether existing models — which can be straightforwardly applied by most professors and students — are already suitable for the task of law exam evaluation. We find that, when provided with a detailed rubric, the LLM grades correlate with the human grader at Pearson correlation coefficients of up to 0.93. Our findings suggest that, even if they do not fully replace humans in the near future, LLMs could soon be put to valuable tasks by law school professors, such as reviewing and validating professor grading, providing substantive feedback on ungraded midterms, and providing students feedback on self-administered practice exams.
Same Crime, Different Time: Disparities in Judicial Outcomes for DWI Offenders
Jeffrey Denning et al.
NBER Working Paper, October 2025
Abstract:
We examine disparities in judicial outcomes among people charged with Driving While Intoxicated (DWI), a setting in which legal guilt is objectively determined by breath alcohol content (BrAC). Focusing on first-time offenders with no aggravating circumstances and BrAC above the legal threshold, we find that race, gender, and financial resources strongly predict the likelihood of incarceration and case dismissal. Defendants with greater socioeconomic advantage are more likely to access rehabilitative alternatives and avoid criminal records. We discuss how these outcome differences may reflect not only disparities in options offered by the court, but also in defendants’ choices among them.
Social Media Participation and Scholarly Success in Law
Julian Nyarko & David Pozen
Journal of Law & Empirical Analysis, December 2025, Pages 266-290
Abstract:
Using a novel dataset on Twitter activity as well as a novel corpus of law journal publications, this paper examines the impact of social media activity on the scholarly success of U.S. law professors. We find that joining Twitter increases citation counts by an average of 22% per year and improves article placements by up to 10 ranks for law professors, relative to a synthetic control group. These positive returns apply across nearly all classes of scholars and are magnified for those who post frequently about their own work. The identified citation boost would be even larger than 22% if it were not partially offset by a decline in citations to articles published pre-Twitter. Overall, our results suggest that social media participation yields concrete benefits in the legal academy — indeed, benefits outstripping those that prior studies have identified in other disciplines — along with a number of potential downsides.
The Paradox of Intellectual Property at the U.S. Supreme Court
Tonja Jacobi & Matthew Sag
Emory University Working Paper, October 2025
Abstract:
The Supreme Court is dramatically more politically polarized in the Roberts Court era, and the justices have been criticized for highly ideological and partisan decision-making. Yet, we show that there is one area of law that is becoming less ideologically divided and predictable: intellectual property (IP). In an earlier study, we showed that, prior to the Roberts Court, IP case outcomes were predictable based on judicial ideology, with more conservative justices embracing IP rights, as they do for real property. In the last two decades, IP has become more influential on the economy and society, through the increasing dominance of tech companies and social media. However, we show that, tested in a variety of ways, Supreme Court IP jurisprudence is no longer ideologically predictable. What explains this paradox? We test multiple possible causal theories posited by various scholars and show that all of them are lacking. The best explanation, consistent with the data, is that the apparent depoliticization of IP at the Supreme Court is a product of the Court’s interaction with the Federal Circuit -- the court of appeals with exclusive jurisdiction over patent cases. However, this account of institutional rivalry does not explain why areas of IP beyond patent law are also less ideologically-determined under the Roberts Court. Whatever the cause, at a time when controversies surround the Supreme Court justices and political control of the Court is a key electoral issue, the finding that one area of doctrine — a politically and economically vital part of the law — has become depoliticized is a striking and important result.
The “Blurred Lines” of Copyright Infringement
Alberto Galasso
Journal of Law and Economics, November 2025, Pages 805-843
Abstract:
This paper studies the creative process in a model in which the level and direction of artistic effort are affected by judicial copyright enforcement. The analysis compares the performance of common sanctioning rules employed by US courts in infringement cases and provides an economic microfoundation for the independent creation defense in copyright law. Using a mechanism-design approach, the paper highlights the benefits of complementing copyright litigation with a system of compulsory licensing. A calibration of the model that fits a leading music infringement case suggests that the damages awarded by courts may stifle creativity, as they substantially exceed those required to deter excessive entry and copying.