Generalist Versus Specialist Judges
The Federal Circuit and a few other counterexamples notwithstanding, American courts are not substantively specialized. By and large, the American judge is thus a generalist. For better or worse, our judiciary seems to be holding out against the pressures toward specialization that have so marked the contemporary legal and medical professions.
Is this a good thing? In the law review literature, there are plenty of calls for the creation of this or that new specialized court. Certainly, specialization leads to quicker and more efficient decisionmaking. But should we expect the specialized judge also to render decisions that are substantively better?
This is the question that lies at the heart of Chad Oldfather’s new article, “Judging, Expertise, and the Rule of Law.”