The Effectiveness of Measures to Increase Appellate Court Efficiency and Decision Output

This Article will examine the effectiveness of measures commonly employed to increase appellate court productivity. Part I of the Article sets forth some common design problems and explains how the research technique employed in the present study avoids these problems by using a multiple time-series research design. Part II applies this design to state court data. Part II also describes the dependent variable, the number of appeals decided per judge, used in the regression analysis. Part III discusses the results of that analysis-the impact of each change listed above on judicial productivity. The Article, although not advocating the adoption of the discussed efficiency measures, concludes that the failure to enact any type of efficiency measure will cause appellate courts to fall behind in the handling of their caseloads.