Federal District Court Judges and the Decision to Publish

Federal district court judges decide to publish just one or two out of every ten opinions. This study tries to explain why judges publish opinions in some cases and not others. I test for the influence of the one legal constraint on publication, the official publication guidelines, and for the influences of several extra-legal factors. Federal district court judges seem likely to publish opinions that meet the official guidelines and that feature powerful, well-placed litigants and counsel. Judges in circuits where the court of appeals publish heavily also do so. There is no evidence that appointing presidents' ideological preferences influence appointees' publication decisions, or that a win for an important actor is influential beyond the actor's presence itself.