Using civil appeals data on Taiwan's Supreme Court (TSC), this article revisits the well-known question of whether the "haves" come out ahead in litigations. We first show that the higher-status litigants indeed mobilized stronger legal representation and obtained more victories than the lower-status litigants. However, we submit that that the party capability theory cannot fully explain the advantages the "haves" enjoyed over the "have-nots." Further analysis reveals that the TSC's exercise of discretionary jurisdiction also played an important role by strongly favoring the governmental litigants at the agenda-setting stage. We argue that the TSC's preference in this regard was induced by the TSC judges' self-identification as part of government. In conclusion, our empirical investigation shows that both party capability and court preference contribute to influence the outcomes of appeals. (JEL K4)

A central concern of access‐to‐justice studies is whether the socioeconomically disadvantaged individuals can obtain effective assistance in dealing with their legal problems. Using the newly collected data from the 2011 Taiwan Survey, this article examines Taiwanese people's advice‐seeking behavior in general and explores the effect of income in particular. This article finds that income had a significantly positive correlation with the likelihood of obtaining legal advice, but it has no impact on obtaining nonlegal advice. By contrast, education had little bearing on the decision to obtain legal advice, but it had a positive influence on seeking nonlegal advice. This article argues that although the gravity of problem was more influential than income on obtaining legal advice, the effect of income should not be easily dismissed. Moreover, the contrasting effect of education on obtaining nonlegal advice strongly suggests that its use was determined by people's knowledge of its existence and capability of accessing such service. To improve the disadvantaged's access to justice, care should be taken not only to increase publicly funded legal advice services but also to enhance the public's awareness of their availability.

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