We study the allocation of German lawyers to regional courts for legal trainee-ships. Because of excess demand in some regions lawyers often have to wait before being allocated. The currently used "Berlin" mechanism is not weakly Pareto efficient, does not eliminate justified envy and does not...

This paper exploits the diversity of panels at the court of appeals in the state of São Paulo to address the role of career backgrounds and ideology in shaping the response of judicial decisions to a major shift in jurisprudence on drug offenses. The Brazilian constitution reserves 80% of the...

Because judges exercise discretion in how they handle and decide cases, heterogeneity across judges can affect case outcomes and, thus, preferences among litigants for particular judges. However, selection obscures the causal mechanisms that drive these preferences. We overcome this challenge by...

In recent years, "public interest law" (PIL) has become a frequent component in conversations about law and policy around the globe. While this worldwide manifestation of a professional and political script that thus far seemed to be typically so American suggests a remarkable process of...

January 2025, for the first time in the postwar history of Germany's national parliament, a mainstream political party (the Christian Democratic Union) relied on the support of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) to pass a motion. This prompted intense public debate as many Germans worried that...

Informing people about historical atrocities and injustice is considered critical for sustaining democracies and preventing similar atrocities in the future. Yet, what remains unknown is whether exposure to factual information about ingroups' historical injustices, such as genocide, slavery, or...