IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jlstud/doi10.1086-651511.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inferring the Winning Party in the Supreme Court from the Pattern of Questioning at Oral Argument

Author

Listed:
  • Lee Epstein
  • William M. Landes
  • Richard A. Posner

Abstract

It is no longer a secret that a lawyer arguing a case before the Supreme Court is more likely to lose if he is asked more questions than his opponent during oral arguments. This paper rigorously tests that hypothesis and the related hypothesis that a lawyer is more likely to lose if he is asked longer questions (measured by words per question) than his opponent. Using regression analysis, we find strong evidence for both hypotheses: the number of questions asked and the number of words per question asked are both negatively correlated with a party's likelihood of winning. Although the paper is primarily empirical, we also explore the theoretical basis for these results. We analyze the role of deliberation in appellate courts and explain that because formal deliberation is often quite limited, judges use oral argument as an alternative way to express their opinions and attempt to influence other judges.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee Epstein & William M. Landes & Richard A. Posner, 2010. "Inferring the Winning Party in the Supreme Court from the Pattern of Questioning at Oral Argument," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 433-467.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jlstud:doi:10.1086/651511
    DOI: 10.1086/651511
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/651511
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/651511
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/651511?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Davis, Yehuda & Govindaraj, Suresh & Suslava, Kate, 2024. "Does the stock market anticipate events and supreme court decisions in corporate cases?," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    2. Leighton Vaughan Williams, 2015. "Forecasting the decisions of the US Supreme Court: lessons from the ‘affordable care act’ judgment," Journal of Prediction Markets, University of Buckingham Press, vol. 9(1), pages 64-78.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ucp:jlstud:doi:10.1086/651511. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JLS .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.