Evaluating the Effect of Law Clerk Gender on Voting at the United States Supreme Court

Kromphardt, Christopher D.

doi:10.1080/0098261x.2016.1257962

Cited by 14 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 37 publications

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“…Scholars also note actors other than the justices can affect outcomes at the Court because justices rarely write the first drafts of their opinions (Peppers & Zorn, 2008; Rosenthal & Yoon, 2011), whereas others delegate much of the drafting process to their law clerks. Accordingly, we control for the percentage of the majority opinion author’s clerks who are female in the term in which the brief is filed (Kromphardt, 2017). We note amici present in a case with the difference in the number of amici supporting each party (Box-Steffensmeier, Christenson, & Hitt, 2013; Collins, 2008).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Gender Norms in Judicial Decision-Making at the U.S. Supreme Court: The Case of Male and Female Justices

Gleason

Jones

McBean

2018

American Politics Research

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Although still a minority, the growing number of women on both the Bench and at the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court has important implications for judicial decision-making and successful advocacy at the Court. Research in judicial behavior generally focuses on vote direction and the presence of female attorneys in a case. We offer a more nuanced account of how gender impacts both attorney success and judicial decision-making by drawing on work in social and political psychology and utilizing quantitative textual analysis to explore the tension between masculine norms of behavior that are valued in the legal profession and feminine norms of behavior that are expected of women, but devalued in the legal profession. Based on the Court’s long-standing disdain for emotional arguments, we examine how the emotional content in 601 party briefs shapes the Court’s majority opinions. Our results indicate that male justices evaluate counsel based on their compliance with traditional gender norms—rewarding male counsel for cool, unemotional arguments and rewarding female counsel for emotionally compelling arguments. However, we find no evidence that gender norms shape the opinions of female justices. Given that the justice system is supposed to be “blind,” our results highlight the durability of gendered expectations and raise questions about the objectivity of judicial decision-making.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Gender Norms in Judicial Decision-Making at the U.S. Supreme Court: The Case of Male and Female Justices

Gleason

Jones

McBean

2018

American Politics Research

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“…I interact this with the female attorney variable. Kromphardt (2017) notes justices with more female law clerks are more receptive to sex discrimination and abortion claims, conditional on ideology. Accordingly, I include the percentage of female law clerks each justice has in the term that the case is decided and multiply it by the female attorney variable.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…R. Johnson, Wahlbeck, and Spriggs 2006; Ringsmuth, Bryan, and Johnson 2013). These are, at first blush, nongendered markers of quality; however, female attorneys are underrepresented at the Supreme Court Bar (Sarver, Kaheny, and Szmer 2008) and in the law clerk corps (Kromphardt 2017). Thus, it is tempting to say that greater representation of women at the Court will lead to more success as they will accrue greater experience and presumably be hired by better firms (e.g., Kaheny, Szmer, and Sarver 2011; Kenney 2002).…”

Section: Oral Arguments and Attorney Gendermentioning

confidence: 99%

Beyond Mere Presence: Gender Norms in Oral Arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court

Gleason

2019

Political Research Quarterly

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Women are less successful than their male counterparts at Supreme Court oral arguments under certain circumstances. However, existing work relies on mere presence rather than on any action female attorneys take in their argument. Drawing on recent work that stresses gender is performative, I argue success for women at oral arguments is tied to conformance with gender norms, subtle and unconscious expectations of how men and women should communicate. Via a quantitative textual analysis of the 2004–2016 terms, I find attorneys are more successful when their oral arguments are more consistent with gender norms. Specifically, male attorneys are rewarded for using less emotional language whereas female attorneys are successful when using more emotional language. This study represents a more nuanced and performative understanding of gender at oral arguments. These results raise normative concerns about how effective women are at the Supreme Court.

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“…There is ample evidence that the justices vary in their behavior on the bench based on their identity. Prior work suggests that the justices are asymmetrically influenced by their clerks (see Kromphardt, 2015, 2017; Ward and Weiden, 2006). Existing research also demonstrates differences in how much language the justices adopt from party and amicus curiae briefs (Corley, 2008; Collins, Corley, and Hamner, 2015) as well as lower court opinions (Corley, Collins, and Calvin, 2011).…”

Section: The Varying Tendencies Of Supreme Court Justicesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Sum of its Parts: How Supreme Court Justices Disparately Shape Attention to Their Opinions

Masood

Kassow

2020

Social Science Quarterly

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Objective While studies frequently examine the impact of the U.S. Supreme Court as an institution, little is known about how individual justices influence attention to their opinions. We investigate whether inherent differences in the majority opinions of individual justices result in certain justices being systematically more influential than their peers. Methods We advance a theory in which Supreme Court adoption of prior opinions is influenced by factors that relate to the identity of the authoring justice. To test these propositions, we explore the universe of the Supreme Court's signed majority opinions from 1986 to 2000. Results We find that intricate tendencies in opinion writing vary systematically by justice in key dimensions relating to their opinions. We also discover that differences among the justices exert an asymmetric impact on citation and adherence to precedent. Conclusion The findings offer important theoretical and normative implications toward a better understanding of the impact of Supreme Court justices on attentiveness to precedent and doctrinal development.

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Evaluating the Effect of Law Clerk Gender on Voting at the United States Supreme Court

Cited by 14 publications

References 37 publications

The Role of Gender Norms in Judicial Decision-Making at the U.S. Supreme Court: The Case of Male and Female Justices

The Role of Gender Norms in Judicial Decision-Making at the U.S. Supreme Court: The Case of Male and Female Justices

Beyond Mere Presence: Gender Norms in Oral Arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court

The Sum of its Parts: How Supreme Court Justices Disparately Shape Attention to Their Opinions

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