23
ARTICLES
CHOOSING THE NEXT SUPREME
COURT JUSTICE:
AN EMPIRICAL RANKING OF JUDGE
PERFORMANCE
STEPHEN J. CHOI* & G. MITU GULATI**
ABSTRACT
The judicial appointments process has grown increasingly frustrating
in recent years. Both sides claim that their candidates are the “most
* Roger J. Traynor Professor, U.C. Berkeley Law School (Boalt Hall).
** Professor
of
Law, Georgetown University.
Kindly
e-mail
comments
to
choi@law.berkeley.edu and gulati@law.georgetown.edu. Erin Dengan, Jennifer Dukart, Édeanna
Johnson-Chebbi, Alice Kuo, Margaret Rodgers, and Rishi Sharma provided research assistance.
Kimberly Brickell deserves special thanks for her work. Aspects of this draft benefited from discussions
with Alex Aleinikoff, Ian Ayres, Scott Baker, Barbara Banoff, Devon Carbado, Lee Epstein, Tracey
George, Prea Gulati, Vicki Jackson, Mike Klarman, Kim Krawiec, Paul Mahoney, Kaleb Michaud,
Greg Mitchell, Ed Kitch, Un Kyung Park, Jim Rossi, Jim Ryan, Mark Seidenfeld, Howard Shelanski,
Paul Stefan, Eric Talley, and George Triantis. For comments on the draft itself, we are grateful to
Michael Bailey, Suzette Baker, Bill Bratton, James Brudney, Brannon Denning, Dan Farber, Phil
Frickey, Michael Gerhardt, Steve Goldberg, Linc Kaplan, Joe Kennedy, Vikram Khanna, Pauline Kim,
Don Langevoort, Jim Lindgren, Bill Marshall, Steve McBundy, Eric Mueller, Jeff Rachlinksi, Judith
Resnik, Steve Salop, Michael Seidman, Peter Seigelman, Keith Sharfman, Pat Shin, Michael Solimine,
Larry Solum, Gerry Spann, Nancy Staudt, Mark Tushnet, David Vladeck, David Walker, Robin West,
Kathy Zeiler, Arnold Zellner, Todd Zywicki, and participants at workshops at Berkeley, Boston
University, Florida State, Georgetown, Virginia, and UNC-Chapel Hill. Given the unusually large
number of people who have e-mailed us with comments on this project, it is likely that there are some
who we have inadvertently failed to thank. Our sincerest apologies to them.
Disclosure: Funding for this project was provided entirely b