Description: Federal judges are not just robots or politicians in robes, yet their behavior is not well understood, even among themselves. Using statistical methods, a political scientist, an economist, and a judge construct a unified theory of judicial decision-making to dispel the mystery of how decisions from district courts to the Supreme Court are made.
Brief description: Lee Epstein is Provost Professor of Law and Political Science and Rader Family Trustee Chair in Law at the University of Southern California.
Review Quotes: The Behavior of Federal Judges sets out to be the definitive book on the subject of judicial behavior. The authors establish a new mainstream in this exciting field--a unified model of judicial behavior that incorporates legal, economic, and political perspectives. There is no question that this book is a major work, providing both a benchmark and an agenda for future work.--William H. J. Hubbard, University of Chicago Law School