Lee Epstein

This volume convincingly lays to rest two held beliefs that have long impeded scholarly analysis of the role of courts and litigation in American politics: 1) that group resort to the courts is a rather recent phenomenon resulting from actions of the Warren Court and the Civil Rights Movement; and 2) that unique and distinctive features of the judiciary somehow place it beyond or outside analytic frameworks used to study and analyze the role, nature and functioning of other governing institutions such as the Congress and the presidency. Meer

Presents historical and statistical information on every important aspect of the US Supreme Court, including its history, development as an institution, the justices' backgrounds, nominations, and confirmations, and the Court's relationship with the public and other governmental and judicial bodies. Meer

Scores of works have made important contributions to the study of courts and judges but far fewer are sufficiently powerful to alter perspectives about entire areas of study. Meer

The past decade has witnessed a worldwide explosion of work aimed at illuminating judicial-behavior: the choices judges make and the consequences of their choices. Meer