The Role of Lawyer-Legislators in Shaping the Law: Evidence from Voting on Tort Reforms

Ulrich Matter and Alois Stutzer

Journal of Law and Economics, 2015, vol. 58, issue 2, 357 - 384

Abstract: Attorneys elected to the US Congress and to state legislatures are systematically less likely to vote in favor of tort reforms that restrict tort litigation but more likely to support bills that extend tort law than are legislators with different professional backgrounds. This finding is based on the analysis of 64 roll call votes at the federal and state levels between 1995 and 2014. It holds when controlling for legislators' ideology and is particularly strong for term-limited lawyer-legislators. The empirical regularity is consistent with the hypothesis that lawyer-legislators, at least in part, pursue their private interests when voting on tort issues. Our results highlight the relevance of legislators' identities and individual professional interests for economic policy making.

Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/684039 (application/pdf)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/684039 (text/html)
Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucp:jlawec:doi:10.1086/684039

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Law and Economics from University of Chicago Press
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Journals Division ().