The right to an equal and fair trial regardless of wealth is a hallmark of American jurisprudence. To ensure this right, the government pays attorneys to represent financially needy clients. In the U.S. federal court system, indigent defendants are represented by either public defenders who are...

In cooperation with Lex Mundi member law firms in 109 countries, we measure and describe the exact procedures used by litigants and courts to evict a tenant for non-payment of rent and to collect a bounced check. We use these data to construct an index of procedural formalism of dispute...

The conduct of adjudication is often influenced by motions--requests made by litigants to modify the course of adjudication. The question studied in this article is why adjudication is designed so as to permit the use of motions. The answer developed is that litigants will naturally know a great...

When AI prediction substantially resolves trial uncertainty, a party purchasing AI prediction will disclose it if it is in their favour and not otherwise, signalling the outcome to the other party. Thus, the trial outcome becomes common knowledge. However, this implies that the parties will...

This paper provides a quantitative analysis of the effects of the early law-and- economics movement on the U.S. judiciary. We focus on the Manne Economics Institute for Federal Judges, an intensive economics course that trained almost half of federal judges between 1976 and 1999. Using the...

We study dynamic task allocation when providers' expertise evolves endogenously through training. We characterize optimal assignment protocols and compare them to discretionary procedures, where it is the clients who select their service providers. Our results indicate that welfare gains from...

Some additional evidence on the comparative effect of income, regulation, and other variables on the demand for lawyers is called for. One objective of this paper is to investigate the speed of adjustment of law schools to shifts in the demand for lawyers. Section I presents a theoretical model...

We examine the effect of hearing cases alongside female judicial colleagues on the probability that a federal judge hires a female law clerk. Federal judges are assigned to cases and to judicial panels at random and have few limitations on their choices of law clerks: these two features make the...

We shot videos of criminal trials using 3D Virtual Reality (VR) technology, prosecuted by actual prosecutors and defended by actual defense attorneys in an actual courtroom. This is the first paper that utilizes VR technology in a non-computer animated setting, which allows us to replace white...

Anecdotal evidence often points to aging as a cause for reduced work performance. This paper provides empirical evidence on this issue in a context where performance is measurable and there is variation in mandatory retirement policies: U.S. state supreme courts. We find that introducing...