New York “closing statement” data provide unique insight into settlement and selection. The distributions of settlements and adjudicated damages are remarkably similar, and the average settlement is very close to the average judgment. One interpretation is that selection effects may be small...

Legal historians seldom use statistics, but this is a missed opportunity. Quantitative methods are particularly helpful in understand core legal history issues, including the effect of legal change and the influence of multiple factors on legislation, judicial decisionmaking, and citizen...

This article explores the selection of disputes for litigation in a setting with two-sided incomplete information and correlated signals. The models analyzed here suggest that Priest and Klein's conclusion that close cases are more likely to go to trial than extreme cases remains largely valid...

The hallmark of Judge Posner's class action decisions is rigorous review to ensure that aggregate litigation serves the best interests of class members and does not unduly pressure defendants to settle. Although he championed class actions, especially as a way to provide efficient justice in...

This article analyzes public and private law enforcement when the government is motivated by rent seeking. A rent-seeking government seeks primarily to maximize revenue. The article concludes as follows: (1) if offenders have sufficient wealth, a rent-seeking government is more aggressive than a...

Forum shopping is problematic because it may lead to forum selling. For diverse motives, including prestige, local benefits, or re-election, some judges want to hear more cases. When plaintiffs have wide choice of forum, such judges have incentives to make the law more pro-plaintiff, because...

The economic analysis of procedure reduces most issues to direct costs and error costs. Direct costs are ordinary litigation costs. Error costs are the reduction in deterrence and the increase in chilling that result from inaccurate adjudication. The goal of procedure is the minimization of the...

The system for resolving domain-name disputes is unique in that it gives the complainant, a trademark owner who claims that a domain name violates its mark, the unilateral ability to choose the arbitration provider. As a result, providers, whether motivated by profit or prestige, have incentives...

Schweizer (2017) provides a powerful and general way of using compensation payments to induce efficient actions. Its application to takings under fiscal illusion, however, is problematic. A better model would assume that the government decides to take property by considering effects on the...

Recent empirical work shows that countries whose legal systems are based on English common law differ systematically from those whose legal systems are based on French civil law. Glaeser and Shleifer (2002) trace this divergence to England's adoption of the jury system and France's adoption of...