Measuring the Work of the Federal District Courts

The federal district court system is one of the largest and most impactful organizations in the United States. The nation’s ninety-four district courts resolve hundreds of thousands of cases, large and small, each year. Yet surprisingly little scholarly attention has been paid to measuring the work of the federal district courts—a vitally important task. It’s important because it affects substantive law; judges routinely decide the merits of issues based on how busy they think they and other judges are. It’s important because the law relaxes procedural protections—such as the Speedy Trial Act’s seventy-day deadline to bring criminal defendants to trial—if a court is perceived to be exceptionally busy. And, perhaps most directly, it’s important to the operation of the district courts; we can’t allocate judicial resources where they are most needed if we can’t accurately assess each district’s workload. The problem of judicial resource allocation is particularly acute today because the number of district court judgeships has remained stagnant for over two decades, the longest period in this country’s history. The backlog of new judgeships to be created provides all the more reason that we accurately measure the workload of the district courts. This Paper identifies problems with—and proposes improvements to—the way in which the federal courts measure their workload. For the last fifty years, the federal courts have used a system of case weights to measure their work. The system is simple: each type of case (patent, antitrust, etc.) gets a numerical weight, and the weights of all cases filed in a district are added together to determine the workload of that district. Through an exhaustive empirical analysis—spanning tens of thousands of cases, hundreds of thousands of pages of judicial opinions, and millions of docket entries—I find that the current system of case weights may significantly mismeasure court workload. Because the current system assigns a single, static weight (e.g., 4.72) to all cases of a particular type (e.g., patent cases) it assumes that cases of that type take, on average, the same amount of judicial work in every district court. But I find that patent case workload varies significantly between districts. I further analyze some of the most common types of cases in the federal courts (product liability cases and two types of civil rights cases) and find that they, too, exhibit significant district-todistrict variation in case workload. My results suggest that the current system overestimates the workload in some districts and underestimates it in others. This Paper’s theoretical contributions are anchored in these empirical results. The Paper is the first to pose—and the first to attempt to answer—a fundamental question: what should we be measuring when we measure a court’s work? I consider three distinct ways of conceptualizing judicial workload based on: tasks (e.g., number of cases resolved), outputs (e.g., number of pages of opinions issued), or resources (e.g., judge time). I categorize existing workload metrics into one of these categories. And I explain why, for courtadministration purposes, a resource-based metric (specifically, one based on the amount of time judges spend on cases) is better than other potential metrics. Building on this analysis, the Paper proposes a more accurate measure of workload that is just as easily administrable. Instead of the current system, which relies on an estimate of a case’s workload based solely on the case’s type (i.e., a static case weight), I propose measuring workload dynamically using evidence of actual work performed for each case. More specifically, I suggest calculating a dynamic weight for each case using, with minor modification, the same information the federal courts already use to calculate static case weights. My proposal addresses the issue identified in this Article and improves the way we measure the work of the federal district courts

Prosecuting Police

Prosecutors face criticism for prosecuting too many minority members and too few police. Recently, some reformers have won prosecutorial elections by pledging to change these priorities. Yet scholars have identified two impediments to police prosecutions. First, county prosecutors often answer to suburban voters indifferent to the excesses of city police. Second, prosecutors depend on those police to investigate their cases and to endorse them as effective. This Article argues that the influence of residents and police on prosecutorial decisions depends on the political geography of a prosecutor’s office. As a result, whether a prosecutor’s office is “city-based,” “regional,” or “state-appointed” shapes a prosecutor’s motivation and decision to prosecute police. Examining nationwide data on charging police, we find that prosecutors are indeed more likely to prosecute police when a greater proportion of their constituents are served by the same police department. This effect is further amplified at higher levels of Black (but not Hispanic) residency. Case studies of specific prosecutorial districts suggest an explanation for this finding. Urban party organizations and Black civil society networks offer a political infrastructure for mobilizing residents against the abuses of police departments. The degree and impact of this mobilization is greater when more of the prosecutor’s constituents fall under the same police jurisdiction, especially when the prosecutor relies on the same political infrastructure to win elections

From Mallory to Morality: The Compatibility of Registration-Jurisdiction Laws with the Dormant Commerce Clause

In June 2023, the Supreme Court handed down its decision in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co., a case that threatened to cause the largest shift in personal jurisdiction law since Daimler AG and Bristol-Myers Squibb. While the Court upheld Pennsylvania’s registration jurisdiction law under the Due Process Clause and International Shoe’s “fair play and substantial justice” standard, Justice Alito’s concurrence opined that the law may violate the Dormant Commerce Clause (DCC). This Comment argues that registration-jurisdiction laws, which permit States to assert general personal jurisdiction over out-of-state businesses merely because they have registered to do business in the State, do not violate the DCC. First, these laws are not discriminatory, either on their face or in their practical effect, as they apply uniformly to all companies and do not grant any advantage to in-state companies over out-of-state companies. On the contrary, the laws seriously harm the economic interests of the enacting State. Second, registration-jurisdiction laws are justified under the Pike balancing test because States have a legitimate interest in providing a forum for out-of-state plaintiffs as a matter of ethical solidarity, even when the State itself derives no direct benefit. The nature of this ethical interest precludes weighing it against the economic burdens imposed by the laws. Consequently, registrationjurisdiction laws, such as the one at issue in Mallory, do not violate the Dormant Commerce Clause and should be upheld as a valid exercise of State power

Buyer, Beware of Addiction

Addictive products kill more than 700,000 people in the United States every year. Despite the large-scale risks that addiction poses, the law requires manufacturers of addictive products to disclose little-to-no information about the risk of addiction—the single most consequential characteristic of a class of products contributing to mass death every year. While consumers understand that addictive products are, in fact, addictive, they generally do not understand the magnitude of the addiction risks that they face. Metaphorically, consumers understand that they are playing a game of “Russian roulette” when they consume an addictive product—but they play without knowing how many bullets are in the gun. This Article considers how and why the law fails to require meaningful addiction risk disclosure. It goes on to discuss what meaningful risk disclosure might entail, including easily digestible quantitative measures of how likely addiction is, information about risky patterns of use, and warning signs of early-stage addiction. This Article suggests that an overhaul of the current approach to addiction research and disclosure is necessary to bring decades-old disclosure requirements in line with current medical research

Immature (Data) Privacy

Sharenting, a combination of the words “sharing” and “parenting,” is a double-edged sword. It can cut both ways because even though it benefits parents by being a source of support and fostering community, it harms children in various significant and nuanced ways. While the world blames parents for sharing too much of their children’s data on social media, other actors also play a role and should share the blame. In this Article, I argue that the most fundamental question sharenting raises is in what ways children’s privacy is violated, and who commits the violation. Social media, as one of the most powerful institutions in today’s world, allows not only parents, but also social media companies themselves and sponsoring companies, to profit from children’s data. Social media has created a marketplace in which processing data and making speech can generate millions of dollars which, in some cases, should deserve less or no First Amendment protection. Because data processing for instrumental purposes is not an act of communication or expression, social media giants have no First Amendment defense. Additionally, social media companies should owe a fiduciary or trust duty to safeguard children’s interests when processing data. On the other hand, when children’s data is used for making commercial speech or outside of family contexts, stronger privacy protections for children should be prioritized over the unrestricted free speech for parents. The current privacy laws are immature for the immature. We need to rethink and recognize the distinct types of privacy to protect the most vulnerable from the most powerful

A National Survey and Critical Analysis of University Police Statutes

This Paper provides an empirical study and critical analysis of university police statutes in all fifty jurisdictions, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia. The primary focus of the survey is to examine the regulatory framework governing campus police officers at public institutions of higher education. The study employs a crossdisciplinary approach, combining critical legal and qualitative analyses to provide a comprehensive overview of the legal landscape surrounding university police across the United States. The findings of the study include several key elements related to university police, such as police powers, jurisdiction, governing bodies, removal procedures, and use of weapons. The Paper also explores the importance of analyzing university police statutes as a body of law amid national conversations of race, justice, and policing on college and university campuses. Furthermore, this study is the third empirical study in fifty years to examine the statutory authority of campus police officers. It builds upon the previous two studies by Gelber (1972) and Bromley (1996) and provides a critical perspective to the law of university police often absent from existing literature

The U.S. Supreme Court Decision in Smith v. Spizzirri: An Analysis of its Impact on Enforcing International Arbitration Agreements and Awards Falling Under the New York Convention in the United States

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of the U.S. courts’ role in the interpretation, enforcement, and confirmation of international arbitration agreements and awards under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) and the New York Convention. It delves into the intricacies of FAA Chapters 1 and 2, which govern domestic and international arbitration respectively, and their interplay in shaping the arbitration landscape in the United States. Initially, this article addresses the significant circuit split regarding 9 U.S.C. § 3, which required clarification by the United States Supreme Court in Smith v. Spizzirri. The Court’s decision provided much-needed clarity on whether a district court must stay a lawsuit pending arbitration or if it can dismiss the case outright when all claims are subject to arbitration. This ruling emphasized the mandatory nature of the stay under Section 3 and reinforced federal policy favoring arbitration, offering a definitive interpretation that impacts both domestic and international arbitration practices. Expanding on this, the article explores how Smith v. Spizzirri impacts arbitration under FAA Chapter 2 and the New York Convention. FAA Chapter 2 implements the New York Convention’s standards for international arbitration agreements, while Chapter 1 provides detailed procedural rules for domestic arbitration. The article examines the integration of these chapters, highlighting how Section 208 of the FAA facilitates the application of Chapter 1’s procedural rules, such as staying proceedings and appointing arbitrators, in international arbitration contexts. The analysis further addresses the role of U.S. courts in confirming and enforcing international arbitral awards under the New York Convention and FAA Chapter 2. It explores the complexities involved, including issues related to parallel proceedings and awards nullified in the primary jurisdiction. Landmark cases such as Bergesen v. Joseph Muller Corp. are discussed to illustrate the application of these frameworks in practice. The article concludes by underscoring the benefits of arbitration, including its neutrality, flexibility, expertise, confidentiality, efficiency, and enforceability. It also reflects on how Smith v. Spizzirri and subsequent rulings have enhanced the consistency and effectiveness of arbitration enforcement, aligning U.S. procedures with global standards. By integrating domestic and international arbitration frameworks, the article highlights the evolving role of U.S. courts in upholding arbitration agreements and ensuring robust enforcement of arbitral awards