Litigated cases are a biased sample, skewing toward hard ones

Evidence

Because straightforward or easy applications of legal rules are rarely litigated, the cases that come to a court are predominantly and disproportionately ones that are in some way hard. The litigated hard cases thus represent a biased sample of all legal events, a phenomenon typically referred to as the selection effect. — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 449

Categorization

• XREF: The selection effect in litigation parallels survivorship bias and reporting bias in other empirical domains. — connects to: Selective evidence can mislead juries about the case’s credibility. — Lynley Hood, A City Possessed, 2644; Litigated cases self-select to those where both sides have plausible legal arguments — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 253; Litigation selects for fringe and hard cases, not representative legal disputes — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 38 (+2 more)

Related

• Litigation selects for fringe and hard cases, not representative legal disputes (similarity 0.94)
• Litigated cases self-select to those where both sides have plausible legal arguments (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Litigation selects for fringe and hard cases, not representative legal disputes #corroborates (0.85) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 38
• Litigated cases self-select to those where both sides have plausible legal arguments #expands (0.60) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 253
• Selective evidence can mislead juries about the case’s credibility. #expands (0.40) — Lynley Hood, A City Possessed, 2644