TY - JOUR
T1 - Expertise, experience, and ideology on specialized courts
T2 - The case of the court of appeals for the federal circuit
AU - Miller, Banks
AU - Curry, Brett
PY - 2009/12
Y1 - 2009/12
N2 - What roles do prior expertise and accumulated experience play in shaping ideologically consistent voting on a specialized court? Using a dataset of obviousness patent cases from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit spanning 1997-2007, we show that prior expertise enhances the influence of ideology on judicial decisionmaking, but that accumulated experience does not. In addition, we build on previous work and show that ideology is a factor in decisionmaking in technical areas of law, contrary to the received wisdom on patent cases.
AB - What roles do prior expertise and accumulated experience play in shaping ideologically consistent voting on a specialized court? Using a dataset of obviousness patent cases from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit spanning 1997-2007, we show that prior expertise enhances the influence of ideology on judicial decisionmaking, but that accumulated experience does not. In addition, we build on previous work and show that ideology is a factor in decisionmaking in technical areas of law, contrary to the received wisdom on patent cases.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=72249091537&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/j.1540-5893.2009.00390.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1540-5893.2009.00390.x
M3 - Article
SN - 1540-5893
VL - 43
SP - 839
EP - 864
JO - Law & Society Review
JF - Law & Society Review
IS - 4
ER -