The Role of Emotional Language in Briefs Before the U.S. Supreme Court

Black, Ryan C.; Hall, Matthew E. K.; Owens, Ryan J.; Ringsmuth, Eve M.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2703875

Cited by 6 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…Judge Michel (1998) notes that oral arguments make no difference in 80% of cases which are instead largely decided by the briefs submitted by the parties. Scholars have likewise noted the importance of briefs by both direct parties and amici (Black et al, 2016; Collins, Corley, & Hamner, 2015; Corley, 2008). Indeed, briefs are such valuable sources of information that the justices often directly borrow language from briefs for the majority opinion (Corley, 2008) and the extent to which the justices borrow language from briefs is increasingly seen as a marker of brief success (Black et al, 2016; Black & Owens, 2012; Collins et al, 2015).…”

Section: The Role Of Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite the early tradition of grand orators such as Daniel Webster, the Court’s rules specifically instruct counsel to avoid “facts and emotion” and instead focus on “arguing legal theory” (O’Connor, 2013, p. 91). Black et al (2016) note that as an appellate court, the Supreme Court discourages “jury arguments” and places a premium on detached legal reasoning above emotion. Indeed, attorneys that craft less emotional briefs are more successful in their arguments (Black et al, 2016).…”

Section: The Role Of Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Drawing upon recent work which finds the structure and content of legal arguments impacts attorney success (Black, Hall, Owens, & Ringsmuth, 2016; Wedeking, 2010), we contend that male and female attorneys’ conformity with gendered norms of communication impacts the evaluation of the justice writing the majority opinion. We focus specifically on the emotional content in legal briefs because the stereotype that women are more emotionally expressive than men is not only pervasive but empirically supported (Chaplin, 2015; Fischer & LaFrance, 2015; Fischer & Manstead, 2000; Mulac, Giles, Bradac, & Palomares, 2013; Yu, 2011).…”

mentioning

confidence: 91%

“…We focus specifically on the emotional content in legal briefs because the stereotype that women are more emotionally expressive than men is not only pervasive but empirically supported (Chaplin, 2015; Fischer & LaFrance, 2015; Fischer & Manstead, 2000; Mulac, Giles, Bradac, & Palomares, 2013; Yu, 2011). We thus analyze the emotional content in all 601 party briefs filed at the Supreme Court between the 2010 and 2013 terms using quantitative textual analysis, (e.g., Black et al, 2016; Pennebaker, Chung, Ireland, Gonzales, & Booth, 2007; Wedeking, 2010). In doing so, we move beyond previous work on attorney gender and judicial decision-making, which focuses on the presence of female attorneys and the direction of a judge’s vote (e.g., Collins, Manning, & Carp, 2010; Szmer et al, 2010).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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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: The Role Of Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Role Of Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 91%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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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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“…More relevant to our point is that justices’ decision‐making processes are influenced by heuristics and other mental shortcuts. Black et al () show that justices’ assessment of the credibility of legal briefs is affected by the use of emotional language in the briefs. Excessive employment of emotional language serves as a heuristic cue that helps justices efficiently discredit the party providing the brief.…”

Section: Laughter and Subconscious Reasoning During Supreme Court Oramentioning

confidence: 99%

Humor and Persuasion: The Effects of Laughter during US Supreme Court's Oral Arguments

Li¹,

Pryor²

2020

Law & Policy

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Is the decision-making of Supreme Court justices influenced by extraneous factors beyond law and policy? We explore this question by examining attorney-induced laughter during oral arguments in cases heard by the Court. Drawing on theories of political psychology and social cognition, we posit that laughter serves as a positive affective cue that might favorably dispose justices (albeit subconsciously) to the side causing the laughter. Analyzing oral argument transcripts during the 1986-93 terms, we find that the side causing more instances of laughter is more likely to win the votes of individual justices, even while controlling for other legally and politically relevant factors. We further find that the effect of laughter is conditional-it exerts a heightened persuasive power on ideologically congruent justices, in noncomplex cases, and when the legal argumentation is of higher quality. Our research thus contributes to the growing literature on personal and emotional aspects of judicial decision-making and, specifically, the emerging scholarly interest in the role of humor during Supreme Court oral arguments.

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Fighting Words: Pro-Choice Cause Lawyering, Legal-Framing Innovations, and Hostile Political-Legal Contexts

McCammon¹,

Beeson-Lynch²

2021

Law Soc. Inq.

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Drawing on social-movement and sociolegal theorizing, we investigate legal-framing innovations in the briefs of reproductive-rights cause lawyers in prominent US Supreme Court abortion cases. Our results show that pro-choice activist attorneys engage in innovative women’s-rights framing when the political-legal context is more resistant to abortion rights for women, that is, when the political-legal opportunity structure is generally closed to reproductive-rights activism. We consider reproductive-rights framing in three types of pivotal abortion cases over the last half-century: challenges to limitations on public funding of abortion, challenges to regulations that include multiple restrictions on abortion access, and challenges to bans on second-trimester abortions. Our analysis proceeds both qualitatively and quantitatively, with close reading of the briefs to distill the main women’s-rights frames, a count analysis using text mining to examine use of the frames in the briefs, and assessment of the political-judicial context to discern its influence on cause-lawyer legal framing. We conclude by theorizing the importance of the broader political-legal context in understanding cause-lawyer legal-framing innovations.

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The Role of Emotional Language in Briefs Before the U.S. Supreme Court

Cited by 6 publications

References 45 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

Humor and Persuasion: The Effects of Laughter during US Supreme Court's Oral Arguments

Fighting Words: Pro-Choice Cause Lawyering, Legal-Framing Innovations, and Hostile Political-Legal Contexts

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