Appellate Advocacy and Judicial Decision Making in the U.S. Courts of Appeals

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This study of decision making in the U.S. Courts of Appeals seeks to explore the extent to which individual attorneys are able to influence judicial opinions and case outcomes through skillful advocacy and issue framing as exhibited in their appellate briefs. In addition, this study will examine attorneys' influence on the transformation of issues from the trial to the appellate levels, and on courts' receptivity to certain arguments on appeal. By focusing on the informational inputs in the appeals process, this research will advance our understanding of the dynamic interaction between bench and bar.This pilot study will focus on cases decided with published opinion by judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta, Georgia from 1996-1998. It will explore the manner in which attorneys, through their briefs, are able to frame issues and arguments so as to influence the content of appellate court opinions, as well as case outcomes. Particularly, it will examine ways in which litigants' counsel strategically emphasize, or ignore issues, claims, precedent, and/or facts in order to shape the development of the appeal. The data will be derived directly from the trial court opinion, the attorneys' briefs, and the appellate court decision. These data will be augmented by a survey of the attorneys involved in the appeals. In addition, the data will permit an evaluation of the extent to which issue creation or suppression takes place in the appellate process, and if attorneys are able to influence such issue transformation. To control for variation in case content, this study will examine (2) decisions identified through a sampling procedure and (2) the universe of cases that raise claims in two narrowly defined issue areas over the time period. Combined, these data sets will provide an opportunity to examine informational inputs in the appeal process for 250 cases decided by the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit.