Lower Court Influence on High Courts: Evidence from the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

Bowie, Jennifer; Masood, Ali S.; Savchak, Elisha C.; Smith, Natalie; Wieck, Bianca; Abrams, Cameron; Melkote, Meghna

doi:10.1017/jlc.2023.18

Cited by 2 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 42 publications

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“…The author suggests that this relatively static patent length is due to an informal incentive structure that encourages patent prosecutors to draft claims that follow a highly standardized format. Finally, Bowie et al (2023) used opinion lengths to study British lower courts' influence on the British Supreme Court. The authors found that the length of a lower court's opinion was positively correlated with influence, as measured by the extent to which the British Supreme Court borrowed language from the lower court's opinions.…”

Section: Law-as-datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational Legal Studies Comes of Age

Chau,

Livermore

2024

EJELS

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Computational analysis techniques are transforming empirical legal scholarship. Two paradigms have emerged: law-as-code, which seeks to represent legal rules in a logical, executable format; and law-as-data, which leverages quantitative analysis of legal texts to reveal patterns and insights. This article surveys these approaches, emphasizing recent developments in large language models and generative artificial intelligence (AI). Law-as-code systems have enabled applications from tax preparation software to smart contracts, but realizing the vision of fully computational law has proven challenging. Law-as-data techniques like natural language processing and machine learning have charted the semantic relationship between courts and illuminated changes in judicial culture. Generative models showcase AI's explosive progress, with impressive feats like passing the U.S. bar example, but they also highlight limitations like factual inaccuracy and interpretability issues. Hybrid approaches integrating computational law, data science, and AI offer a promising research direction. As these tools spread, legal scholars can analyze more legal data than ever before, but they must remain cognizant of challenges like biased or low-quality data and linguistic/cultural limitations. Used judiciously alongside traditional methods, computational analysis has the potential to revolutionize empirical legal studies.

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Section: Law-as-datamentioning

confidence: 99%

Computational Legal Studies Comes of Age

Chau,

Livermore

2024

EJELS

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Well said!: Professional norms and female justices' evaluation of lower court opinion text

Gleason,

Kissoon

2024

Law & Policy

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Supreme Court justices' opinions shape the contours of case law binding throughout the United States. Importantly though, justices do not write their opinions de novo. Rather, they routinely draw on lower court judges' opinion language when crafting opinions. In doing so, justices stretch the substantive impact of lower court judges' reasoning beyond the boundaries of their circuits. However, justices do not draw equally on lower court opinions; while previous work often ties this to judges' professional qualifications, we draw on work stressing female supervisors are more likely to enforce professional norms on subordinates. We argue female justices are more likely to draw upon lower court opinions complying with professional norms because of greater implicit norm internalization over the course of their careers. We test this proposition with a quantitative textual analysis of the justices' opinions and lower court opinions. We find support for our argument. This raises normative concerns about the overall impact of greater judicial diversity.

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Lower Court Influence on High Courts: Evidence from the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom

Cited by 2 publications

References 42 publications

Computational Legal Studies Comes of Age

Computational Legal Studies Comes of Age

Well said!: Professional norms and female justices' evaluation of lower court opinion text

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