We explore the role of sex in judging by addressing two questions of long-standing interest to political scientists: whether and in what ways male and female judges decide cases distinctly-"individual effects"-and whether and in what ways serving with a female judge causes males to behave differently-"panel effects." While we attend to the dominant theoretical accounts of why we might expect to observe either or both effects, we do not use the predominant statistical tools to assess them. Instead, we deploy a more appropriate methodology: semiparametric matching, which follows from a formal framework for causal inference. Applying matching methods to 13 areas of law, we observe consistent gender effects in only one-sex discrimination. For these disputes, the probability of a judge deciding in favor of the party alleging discrimination decreases by about 10 percentage points when the judge is a male. Likewise, when a woman serves on a panel with men, the men are significantly more likely to rule in favor of the rights litigant. These results are consistent with an informational account of gendered judging and are inconsistent with several others.

This cohort study compares 30-day mortality and inpatient intensive care unit (ICU) admissions before and after the implementation of a novel emergency department–based ICU.

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Reconstruction of extensive nasal defects often represents a significant challenge owing to several unique qualities of the nose, such as complex topography, mobile free margins, and multiple nasal subunits. Furthermore, loss of internal nasal lining and/or structural skeletal support may be present following removal of extensive skin cancers.Objective: To describe our experience with the use of forehead flap reconstruction for extensive nasal defects.Design: Retrospective case series.Setting: Academic health care hospital system.Patients/Intervention: One hundred forty-seven patients with extensive nasal defects repaired with a forehead flap. Main Outcome Measures:The functional and aesthetic results were assessed. The characteristics of defects repaired with the forehead flap and the need for lining and/or cartilage were examined. Results:The forehead flap was used to repair 147 nasal defects after Mohs excision of nonmelanoma skin cancer. Full-thickness skin was lost in all cases, structural skeletal support in 68 cases (46%), and internal mucosal lining in 45 cases (31%). Our experience and surgical technique using the forehead flap are described. Conclusions:The forehead flap represents one of the best methods for repair of extensive nasal defects. Near-normal functional and cosmetic results can be achieved.

Winner of the 2008 Pi Sigma Alpha award for the best paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association. We thank the Center for Empirical Research in the Law, the Weidenbaum Center at Washington University, the National Science Foundation, the Baldy Center for Law & Social Policy, and the Northwestern University School of Law for supporting our research; Cass Sunstein, David Schkade, Lisa M. Ellman, and Andres Sawicki for sharing their data; Shari Diamond, Sarah Fischer, William Landes, Kevin Quinn, Richard Posner, Nancy Staudt, Kim Yuracko, the editor and anonymous reviewers of the American Journal of Political Science, and participants at faculty workshops at Dartmouth College, Stony Brook University, the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, the University of Pennsylvania, and Washington University for providing useful comments; and Delia Bailey, Kathryn Jensen, Hyung Kim, Zachary Levinson, Jessica Silverman, and Jennifer Solomon for supplying excellent research assistance. The project's web site (http://epstein.law.northwestern.edu/research/genderjudging.html) houses a full replication archive, including the data and documentation necessary to reproduce our results.1 An appendix on our web site describes the results of some 30 studies on the topic. We should note that our focus is on sex, but, of course, the federal bench has been diversified on the dimensions of race and color. The methodological approach we advocate here would be equally suitable for exploring the effect of these characteristics on judges or, for that matter, legislators, advisors, attorneys, litigants, and voters.2 Our phrasing is not accidental. For the reasons we supply in the second section, only the second question lends itself to causal inference. might expect to observe either or both sex-based effects, including accounts that stress information, representation, and socialization. We depart from existing work in two ways. First, while most studies explore sex-based effects in a limited number of legal areas, we examine 13, ranging from disability law to piercing the corporate veil to, of course, sex discrimination. Analyzing a diverse set of disputes, we believe, permits a more comprehensive assessment of the implications of the various theoretical accounts. Second, while most previous work relies on variants of standard regression analysis, we turn instead to semiparametric matching methods, which follow from