We seek to contribute to an understanding of how judicial elections affect the incentives and decisions of judges. We develop a theoretical model suggesting that judges who are concerned about their reputation would tend to "decide against their prior" as they approach elections. That is, judges...

Third-party funding is an arrangement whereby an outside entity finances the legal representation of a party involved in litigation or arbitration. The outside entity — called a “third-party funder” — could be a bank, hedge fund, insurance company, or some other entity or individual that...

Who gets to determine rights and justice? Which mechanism of judicial selection and accountability is optimal? There is no easy answer. If judges are independent experts, nominated and evaluated by their peers, they will be immune from the pressures of electoral rent-seeking, but unaccountable...

One of the most basic assumptions of our legal system is that when two parties face off in court, the case will be adjudicated before a judge who is trained in the law. This Essay begins by showing that empirically, the assumption that most judges have legal training does not hold true for many...

How have India's Supreme Court judges behaved towards minorities detained under anti-terror laws? Do judges make distinctions between the religious and political affiliations of the accused in anti-terror cases? If so, why, and under what conditions? The paper investigates these questions...

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...

Appellate judges, in their roles as decision makers, are extensive users of information. They are paid to pass judgement on the unresolved disputes of others. Information to assist the judge in making those decisions is provided to them in court records, attorney's briefs and oral arguments....

The experience of working as returning officer (RO), assistant returning officer (ARO), presiding officer (PO) and revising authority (RA) during past four important elections has made me to learn a lot about the role of the judge during general elections activity (for returning the candidates...

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...

Scholars have long sought to resolve whether and to what degree political actor diversity influences the outputs of political institutions like legislatures, administrative agencies, and courts. When it comes to the judiciary, diverse judges may greatly affect outcomes. Despite this potential,...