Pfander on Why Judges Leave (Reviewing Burbank, Plager & Ablavsky)

Now available on the Courts Law section of JOTWELL is an essay by Prof. Jim Pfander (Northwestern) entitled Why Judges Leave the Bench. It reviews Stephen Burbank, S. Jay Plager, and Greg Ablavsky's recent article, Leaving the Bench. Jim's essay begins:

Law review articles have both texts and subtexts, messages that come through loud and clear and more subtle hints and suggestions that lurk in the article’s structure or methodology or footnotes.  A recent paper by Stephen Burbank, S. Jay Plager, and Greg Ablavsky nicely illustrates the idea.  In Leaving the Bench, the three co-authors offer a careful assessment of the many factors that shape the decisions of federal judges to step down from their jobs as active members of the Article III judiciary.  In the text of the piece, the authors explore the consequences of various forms of judicial departure and make a persuasive case that the institutional judiciary depends heavily on the contributions of senior status judges.  In the subtext, the authors provide a subtle reminder that judicial behavior, like all human behavior, resists simplistic modeling and one-dimensional explanation.

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