This Article uses public choice theory and the new institutionalism to discuss the incentives, proclivities, and shared backgrounds of lawyers and judges. In America every law-making judge has a single unifying characteristic, each is a former lawyer. This shared background has powerful and...

In this brief Article, I explore the growing empirical evidence in support of the public choice model of judicial decision making. Although legal scholars have traditionally been reluctant to engage in a critical inquiry into the role of judicial self-interest on judicial behavior, recent...

The "trial penalty" is a concept widely accepted by all the major actors in the criminal justice system: defendants, prosecutors, defense attorneys, court employees, and judges. The notion is that defendants receive longer sentences at trial than they would have through plea bargain, often...

The conventional wisdom among many legal scholars is that judicial independence can best be achieved with an appointive judiciary; judicial elections turn judges into politicians, threatening judicial autonomy. Yet the original supporters of judicial elections successfully eliminated the...

The issue of what judges may say (or write) when they are not on the bench is an important one, but one that is rarely considered in Ireland. This article looks at recent occasions where extrajudicial speech has been the subject of public comment in Ireland. It then examines case law from other...

I discuss in this article Judge Posner's decision in Kikalos v. United States, 400 F.3d 908 (7th Cir. 2005). I open with the following:I am a Judge Posner fan. My vantage point is tax procedure and tax crimes, areas in which I practice and teach as an adjunct at the University of Houston Law...

Scientific, statistical, and economic models are often crucial in legal fact-finding. Competing models yielding different inferences may represent the same phenomenon. This article studies the judgment of models in legal fact-finding, in particular where competing models and inferences must be...