Party Capability Theory as an Explanation for Intervention Behavior in the English Court of Appeal

Government Lawyers and Non-judicial Constitutional Review in Estonia

“…As Galanter (1975, p. 347) put it, 'the character and impact of litigation might be best understood if, rather than starting from consideration of rules or of institutional processes, we began by looking at the parties and their relation to dispute institutions'. Comparative judicial studies reveal that parties with more resources and experience are advantaged over other litigants-a pattern that these studies explain in terms of 'party capability' theory (Atkins, 1991;Dotan, 1999a;Haynie, 1994;McCormick, 1993;McGuire, 1995;Smyth, 2000;Songer, Sheehan & Haire, 1999).…”

Understanding the Time to Court Case Resolution: A Competing Risks Analysis Using Belgian Data

“…Thus, to justify our covariates and articulate specific hypotheses concerning the covariates' effect on the timing of settlement and trial judgment, respectively, we draw on a diverse set of arguments put forth by the different strands of the literature on litigation and administration of justice. These include (i) the rational choice theories (see, e.g., Kaplow and Shavell 2002, Spier 2007, Farmer and Pecorino 1996 that attribute parties' decision to pursue trial over settlement to either exogenously determined or asymmetric information-induced divergent expectations 3 ; (ii) the party capability theory that views court outcomes as a function of party-level resource stratification (e.g., Galanter 1974, Atkins 1991; (iii) theories of judicial decision-making that stress the importance of extralegal factors and judge characteristics (e.g., George and Epstein 1992, Danziger et al 2011, Peresie 2005, Ramseyer 2012and (iv) behavioral approaches to litigation that highlight the role of emotions (e.g., Kaufmann and Stern 1988, Huang and Wu 1992, Cross 2000, Blumenthal 2005). …”

Supreme Court Outcomes in Criminal Justice Cases (1994-2012 Terms)

“…The author of the article, law professor Marc Galanter (1974), set forth "some conjectures about the way in which the basic architecture of the legal system creates and limits the possibilities of using the system as a means of redistributive change" (p. 95). Since the publication of Galanter's article, scholars applied the framework and concepts to a number of sociopolitical phenomena (Hendley, Murrell, & Ryterman, 1999;Kinsey & Stalans, 1999), including the behavior of appellate courts (Atkins, 1991;Farole, 1999;Songer, Sheehan, & Brodie Haire, 1999). Since the publication of Galanter's article, scholars applied the framework and concepts to a number of sociopolitical phenomena (Hendley, Murrell, & Ryterman, 1999;Kinsey & Stalans, 1999), including the behavior of appellate courts (Atkins, 1991;Farole, 1999;Songer, Sheehan, & Brodie Haire, 1999).…”