Specializing the Courts
Specializing the Courts
Most Americans think that judges should be, and are, generalists who decide a wide array of cases. Nonetheless, we now have specialized courts in many key policy areas. Specializing the Courts provides the first comprehensive analysis of this growing trend toward specialization in the federal and state court systems.
Lawrence Baum incisively explores the scope, causes, and consequences of judicial specialization in four areas that include most specialized courts: foreign policy and national security, criminal law, economic issues involving the government, and economic issues in the private sector. Baum examines the process by which court systems in the United States have become increasingly specialized and the motives that have led to the growth of specialization. He also considers the effects of judicial specialization on the work of the courts by demonstrating that under certain conditions, specialization can and does have fundamental effects on the policies that courts make. For this reason, the movement toward greater specialization constitutes a major change in the judiciary.
296 pages | 11 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2010
Chicago Series in Law and Society
Law and Legal Studies: The Constitution and the Courts
Political Science: American Government and Politics, Judicial Politics
Reviews
Table of Contents
List of Tables
Preface
Acknowledgments
ONE / A First Look at Judicial Specialization
Questions to Address
Extent: The Landscape of Judicial Specialization
Plan of the Book
Appendix: The Scholarship on Judicial Specialization
TWO / Perspectives on Causes and Consequences
Consequences: The Impact of Judicial Specialization
Causes: The Sources of Judicial Specialization
Summing Up and Looking Ahead
Appendix: Research Strategy
THREE / Foreign Policy and Internal Security
Overseas Courts
Military Justice
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Courts
The Removal Court
Discussion
FOUR / Criminal Cases
Promoting Efficiency
Occasional Efforts to Attack Crime with Sanctions
Socialized Courts in the Progressive Era
Problem-solving Courts of the Current Era
Discussion
FIVE / Economic Issues: Government Litigation
Revenue
Expenditures
Regulation
Discussion
SIX / Economic Issues: Private Litigation
Patents
Corporate Governance: The Delaware Courts
Business Courts
Bankruptcy
Discussion
SEVEN / Putting the Pieces Together
The Causes of Specialization
The Consequences of Specialization
Evaluating Judicial Specialization
The Future of Judicial Specialization
References
Index