Effective Appellate Advocacy

Mitchell, William D.; Wiener, Frederick Bernays

doi:10.2307/1336198

Cited by 1 publication

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“…Although oral arguments are the most publicly visible part of advocacy, many jurists downplay the importance of oral arguments and instead emphasize the value of a well-crafted brief in attorney success (Rehnquist, 2001). Judge Michel (1998) notes that oral arguments make no difference in 80% of cases which are instead largely decided by the briefs submitted by the parties. Scholars have likewise noted the importance of briefs by both direct parties and amici (Black et al, 2016; Collins, Corley, & Hamner, 2015; Corley, 2008).…”

Section: The Role Of Communicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Gender Norms in Judicial Decision-Making at the U.S. Supreme Court: The Case of Male and Female Justices

Gleason

Jones

McBean

2018

American Politics Research

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Although still a minority, the growing number of women on both the Bench and at the Bar of the U.S. Supreme Court has important implications for judicial decision-making and successful advocacy at the Court. Research in judicial behavior generally focuses on vote direction and the presence of female attorneys in a case. We offer a more nuanced account of how gender impacts both attorney success and judicial decision-making by drawing on work in social and political psychology and utilizing quantitative textual analysis to explore the tension between masculine norms of behavior that are valued in the legal profession and feminine norms of behavior that are expected of women, but devalued in the legal profession. Based on the Court’s long-standing disdain for emotional arguments, we examine how the emotional content in 601 party briefs shapes the Court’s majority opinions. Our results indicate that male justices evaluate counsel based on their compliance with traditional gender norms—rewarding male counsel for cool, unemotional arguments and rewarding female counsel for emotionally compelling arguments. However, we find no evidence that gender norms shape the opinions of female justices. Given that the justice system is supposed to be “blind,” our results highlight the durability of gendered expectations and raise questions about the objectivity of judicial decision-making.

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