Manna from Heaven for Judges: Judges’ Reaction to a Quasi‐Random Reduction in Caseload
Christoph Engel,Keren Weinshall +1 more
TLDR
In this article, the impact of caseload on judicial decision making was investigated in the Israeli judiciary and six senior registrars were appointed in two of the six magistrate's court districts, and they found that the reduction had a significant impact on the process and outcomes of judicial decision-making.Abstract:
What is the impact of caseload on judicial decision making? Is increasing judicial staff effective in improving judicial services? To address these questions, we exploit a natural, near‐randomized experiment in the Israeli judiciary. In 2012, six senior registrars were appointed in two of the six magistrate's court districts. The choice of districts was motivated by reasons unrelated to judicial performance. In these two districts, the civil caseload per judge was substantially reduced. We find that the reduction had a significant impact on the process and outcomes of judicial decision making. Judges working in courts with reduced caseload invested more resources in resolving each case. The effect is mostly to the advantage of plaintiffs, who were more likely to win, recover a larger fraction of their claims, and be reimbursed for litigation costs. We discuss the implications for judicial management and theories about judicial decision making.read more
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Judging the Flood of Litigation
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the Court should let the lower courts rely on alternative mechanisms, such as procedural rules and case-management techniques, to handle new claims instead of closing the courthouse doors to stave them off.
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Bigger Isn't Always Better: An Analysis of Court Efficiency Using Hierarchical Linear Modeling
Teresa Dalton,Jordan M. Singer +1 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors find that two variables are particularly useful in predicting overall case length: the total number of attorneys filing an appearance in the case, and the number of authorized judgeships for a given district court.
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Does Group Familiarity Improve Deliberations in Judicial Teams? Evidence from the German Federal Court of Justice
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Factors Contributing to Guilty Plea Wrongful Convictions: A Quantitative Analysis of Australian Appellate Court Judgments:
TL;DR: This paper analyzed 139 Australian defendants who pleaded guilty to criminal charges and found that criminal defendants can face significant pressures to plead guilty, but wrongful conviction scholarship has largely overlooked the study of guilty pleas.
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The Social Psychology of Procedural Justice
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Bootstrap-Based Improvements for Inference with Clustered Errors
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigate inference using cluster bootstrap-t procedures that provide asymptotic refinement, including the example of Bertrand, Duflo, and Mullainathan.
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Causal Inference without Balance Checking: Coarsened Exact Matching
TL;DR: It is shown that CEM possesses a wide range of statistical properties not available in most other matching methods but is at the same time exceptionally easy to comprehend and use.