Does delegation of drafting duties to law clerks result in judgments that show lack of confidence in terms of writing style? A stylometric analysis.

Peter Mascini*, Nina Holvast

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

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Abstract

Based on an analysis of all administrative court cases published in theNetherlands in 2020 (N=4,642), we tested the hypothesis that experienced law clerks write judgments with greater confidence than less experienced clerks. A confidently written judgment was defined as being shorter, less standardized, and containing fewer legal references than a less confidently written judgment. In support of this hypothesis, our results showed that law clerks with more experience co-signed judgments that were less standardized and contained fewer legal references. However, contrary to the confidence hypothesis, we established that these judgments were also longer than judgments co-signed by less experienced clerks.Our study contextualizes the concerns expressed in studies on the US Supreme Court about the delegation of drafting duties to inexperienced law clerks. The study challenges the assumption that delegation of drafting duties to law clerks automatically results in judgments with a less confident writing style, due to the clerks’ inexperience. The assumption may hold for the US Supreme Court, where all law clerks are relatively inexperienced. However, the assumption does not hold in jurisdictions in which law clerks can be just as experienced (in terms of years worked in the legal field) as judges. This conclusion suggests that research on the functioning of the US Supreme Court cannot necessarily be generalized to other jurisdictions.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)110-131
Number of pages22
JournalJournal of Law and Courts
Volume12
Issue number1
Early online date3 Apr 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2024

Bibliographical note

© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association.

Research programs

  • SAI 2005-04 MSS
  • ESSB SOC

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