In the U.S. legal system, litigants frequently retain counsel to represent their interests in civil cases, particularly when the stakes are high. Scholarly work and anecdotal evidence suggest that variation in the quality of advocacy has the potential to affect litigant success. We examine the relationship between attorney characteristics, case outcomes, and judicial voting in products liability decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Our analysis found some differences in the levels of experience and specialization of counsel representing defendants and plaintiffs and that counsel expertise was, at times, related to litigant success. In a multivariate model of decisionmaking, judges were less likely to support the position of plaintiffs when they were represented by counsel appearing for the first time before the circuit. When defendants were represented by attorneys who did not specialize in relevant areas of the law, judges were more likely to decide in favor of the plaintiff. These findings suggest that those attorneys who do not meet a minimum threshold of expertise will be less likely to find judicial support for their client than other attorneys. Such attorneys may be less successful as a result of their lack of familiarity with the law and appellate process or because they make poor choices regarding the likelihood of success on appeal.

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The existing studies of policy diffusion have paid insufficient attention to how policy actors in the macroenvironment of local jurisdictions influence the process of policy diffusion, what kind of mechanisms drive the interdependent spread of a policy, and how the diffusion process changes over time. We explore, both theoretically and empirically, the role different go-betweens can play in policy diffusion, what kind of interactions take place between the micro level and macro level, and how shifts in the constellations of actors in the macroenvironment of a local jurisdiction can influence the mechanisms and rate of policy diffusion. Our empirical study of the diffusion of drug courts in four U.S. states demonstrates that there can indeed be significant interactions between the micro level and the macro level and that these interactions are likely to shape the diffusion process. KEY WORDS: policy diffusion, go-betweens, drug courts 484 0190-292X V C 2015 Policy Studies Organization

Judicial independence in American politics has been hailed as a means of preserving individual liberty and minority rights against the actions of the majoritarian branches of government. Recently, however, legal professionals and scholars of the courts have begun to question the magnitude of judicial independence, suggesting that budgeting and finance issues pose a threat to judicial independence. This article explores whether state judiciaries are being threatened on this front by soliciting the perceptions of key state officials. Using surveys of court administrators, executive budget officers, and legislative budget officers in the states, we examine three aspects of the politics of judicial budgeting: competing for scarce resources, interbranch competition, and pressure to raise revenues. The survey responses suggest that, in a substantial number of states, judicial independence has, at times, been threatened by interbranch competition and pressures to raise revenues.