Abstract
Presidents influence law and policy through the appointment of federal judges. Presidents who wish to fix the courts to adopt certain positions need to know what individual factors affect subsequent judicial behavior. This Article offers an extensive and systematic examination of what we know about the relative effect of personal attributes, social background, and policy preferences on judicial decision-making. This Article hypothesizes that circuit judges who served as full-time professors behave differently from their colleagues in meaningful ways. First, academics on the circuit court bench adopt more extreme ideological stances. Second, academics on the bench seek to be more influential by writing more majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions and by publishing majority opinions with greater frequency. Third, academics on the bench attain greater influence by advancing progressive and innovative legal theories in their decisions. Thus, presidents who appoint academics to the appellate bench may achieve longer and more pervasive influence on the law.
How to Cite
43 Ariz. L. Rev. 9 (2001)
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