The Behavior of Federal Judges

Introduction
Technical

INTRODUCTION

The analysis in this book is largely though not entirely statistical, and we have thought it might be helpful to introduce at the outset some technical concepts and terms in statistics that may be unfamiliar to many readers. As we emphasize in the general introduction, we want this book to be accessible to judges, lawyers, law professors, law students, and others who are not adept at statistical analysis, as well as to those members of the legal profession who are, and of course to social scientists. We also explain conventions we use to make our analysis at once clear and compact.