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Party capability theory suggests that parties who have access to resources are advantaged in courts of law. As the disparity between the parties' resources increases, the relative advantage increases as well. Party capability theory also argues that the government and corporations possess the advantage of repeat player status and have greater opportunities than individuals to shape the rules. In empirical tests, party capability theory seems to explain litigant outcomes in the appellate courts of the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada. However, research on developing countries such as the Philippines, South Africa, and Israel suggests that courts in less economically developed nations actually favor individuals, who presumably have the least resources of any type of litigant. Judges in countries where wealth is unevenly distributed appear to be sympathetic to those with less. One possible explanation for this finding is that courts in developing countries support individuals in certain contexts in order to further the court's legitimacyThe purpose of this paper is to apply party capability theory to the U.S. state supreme courts which provide tremendous variation across a number of political and economic factors. Using the State Supreme Court Data Base, I expect that state supreme courts will demonstrate similar concerns for the population's perceptions, particularly in states with partisan elections. Moreover, I anticipate that this concern will be greatest in the states with the greatest income inequalities. The results will provide much greater understanding of the effects of presumed resources on litigation outcomes. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a cross-national study that examines the role of gender in judicial decision making in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain. It mentions that socialization of female lawyers with female judges within the respective judicial systems might affect the case outcome. The study examined appellate court decisions in each country from 1980 to 2000.