Josh Wright and his co-authors find that federal judges are less likely to have their decisions in antitrust cases appealed if they have received training at the George Mason Law and Economics seminars, at least in less-complex cases.
Despite this apparent increase in the quality of judicial decision-making in some antitrust cases (or a less-charitable critic might postulate, because of it), some interest groups and members of Congress want to shut down the LEC’s programs. Indeed, given that they find that judicial training improves decision-making in less-complex but not more-complex cases, perhaps a more logical conclusion would be that judges should be exposed to more rather than less such training.
For those who missed the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention, one of the most entertaining panels was the on the “Regulation of Judicial Conduct” which featured a discussion of the efforts by certain members of Congress to restrict or make more difficult the ability of judges to attend judicial education seminars. Eugene appeared on that panel, along with Judge Raymond Randolph and Robert Schiff, and Judge Carlos Bea moderated.