Judge-level disparity
Seventh Circuit · 2020–2025 · research detail
Seventh Circuit judge-panel research
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit · January 2, 2020–December 31, 2025
Decision relief · Any reversal, vacatur, remand, or comparable appellate relief; the broader outcome used by the thesis judge analysis.
- Known dispositions
- 153 relief / 1,375
- Routine
- 25 / 728
- Doctrine
- 128 / 647
- Panel memberships
- 4,152 across 21 judges
Observed / raw is an exact relief numerator divided by a displayed decision denominator. A panel disposition appears once in each participating judge’s row; it is still one likelihood row.
Modeled is a posterior mean with a 95% interval after V3 adjustment. The comparison score places the focal judge with two average circuit peers; the likelihood itself uses every decision’s actual participating panel.
Observed publication mix recombines only the modeled Routine and Doctrine rates—using that judge’s observed track proportions. It does not reproduce the judge’s observed posture, offense, issue, or year mix.
What stands out
Primary V3 remains the headline model. The summaries below update with the selected outcome and Routine/Doctrine weighting.
Judge comparison
Publication track is the dominant measured split: Doctrine relief is 19.8% versus 3.4% for Routine decisions.
- Highest modeled overall
- Flaum, Joel Martin20.0%108 decisions
- Lowest modeled overall
- Kirsch, Thomas Lee II9.0%287 decisions
- Typical raw → modeled move
- 1.3 ppMedian absolute movement
Case mix
Issues and offenses describe case content. Publication mix is the separate Routine/Doctrine weighting used for modeled overall rates.
Issues
- Highest observed rate
- Categorical Approach Predicate20.1%239 appearances · 3/18 judge cells under 5
- Lowest observed rate
- Ineffective Assistance1.7%348 appearances · 2/20 judge cells under 5
- Most represented
- Other1,161
- Least represented
- Career Offender Acca 924C110
Offenses
- Highest observed rate
- Firearms14.4%834 appearances · 0/20 judge cells under 5
- Lowest observed rate
- Sex Offense5.3%228 appearances · 6/20 judge cells under 5
- Most represented
- Drugs1,334
- Least represented
- Other99
Counts are displayed judge-panel appearances; issue families can overlap.
Background
0 of 8 measured-background 95% intervals exclude zero.
- Strongest career direction
- Law-clerk experience-0.30
- Appointer / gender
- Republican appointer -0.10Female +0.13
- Age / tenure
- Age +0.26Tenure +0.26
- Race coverage
- White has the broadest panel coverage1,37117 judge(s) in this descriptive category
Robustness
Calendar year produces the largest typical movement; Senior-status share produces the largest single-judge movement.
Across every completed check, the median judge spans 0.36 percentage points; the widest span is 1.06 points. A narrow distribution means the estimate changes little under that tested assumption.
Method in one line: one disposition enters once; actual-panel weights sum to one; four chains contribute 8,000 retained posterior draws.