Attorney expertise, litigant success, and judicial decisionmaking in the US courts of appeals

In the U.S. legal system, litigants frequently retain counsel to represent their interests in civil cases, particularly when the stakes are high. Scho larly work and anecdotal evidence suggest that variation in the quality of advocacy has the potential to affect litigant success. We examine the relat ionship between attorney characteristics, case outcomes, and judicial votin g in products liability decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Our analys is found some differences in the levels of experience and specialization of counsel representing defendants and plaintiffs and that counsel expertise was, at times, related to litigant success. In a multivariate model of deci sionmaking, judges were less likely to support the position of plaintiffs w hen they were represented by counsel appearing for the first time before th e circuit. When defendants were represented by attorneys who did not specia lize in relevant areas of the law, judges were more likely to decide in fav or of the plaintiff. These findings suggest that those attorneys who do not meet a minimum threshold of expertise will be less likely to find judicial support for their client than other attorneys. Such attorneys may be less successful as a result of their lack of familiarity with the law and appell ate process or because they make poor choices regarding the likelihood of s uccess on appeal.