DRI, in conjunction with the American Property Casualty Insurance Association (APCIA), is seeking to use advanced data science techniques to examine the extent to which a judge’s background characteristics may influence case outcomes, and to evaluate which, if any, background characteristics may be reliable indicators of judicial attitudes towards tort liability. Our goal in this survey is to identify current judges whom the defense bar considers to have either a restrained view or an expansive view of tort liability, and based on the identified judges, to evaluate which characteristics are correlated with those views.
We ask for your help in advancing this project and welcome your views on up to eight trial or appellate judges, at either the state or federal level, before whom you have practiced or with whose rulings you are otherwise familiar. Examples of criteria that you might consider as a basis for categorizing an individual judge’s view as either restrained or expansive include (but are not limited to) awards, summary judgment rulings, expert witness admissibility, and jury instructions.
This survey is completely anonymous and confidential, and neither individual nor cumulative responses will be published.
