New research in Economic Inquiry demonstrates evidence of in-group bias operating within the judiciary—a setting where impartiality is expected.
Using Florida medical malpractice cases with randomly assigned judges, investigators found that sharing a law school with the presiding judge boosted a plaintiff's attorney's probability of recovering damages by approximately 2 percentage points.
The researchers found no comparable effects when judges and lawyers attended different law schools of similar rank or shared the same gender or minority status, suggesting that the result is not driven by school quality or these other observable similarities. The effect was also strongest when the judge was at least 10 years older than the lawyer, consistent with an age-dependent effect.
"Courts are designed to deliver impartial justice, yet our findings show that something as simple as a shared law school can affect whether plaintiffs recover damages," said corresponding author David Zhang, PhD, of Rice University. He noted that this raises important questions about when ties between judges and lawyers should be disclosed or lead to recusal.
"The fact that observable similarities alone do not explain these patterns highlight the nuances of decision-making in high-stakes cases—and the power of rigorous data collection and research design to uncover what really matters," added co-author Tianwang Liu, PhD, an independent researcher.
URL upon publication: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ecin.70080
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