Legal News

California has most influential state supreme court in the nation

By Jason Siegel

A new study ranked the California Supreme Court as the most influential state supreme court in the nation, reports The National Law Journal.

The study, "'Followed Rates' and Leading State Cases, 1940-2005," ranked states by the opinions most frequently "followed" by other state courts, unlike previous studies that compiled all the cases "cited" by other courts, regardless of whether they were followed or rejected by other state courts.

The co-author of the study, Jake Dear, is the chief supervising attorney for the California Supreme Court. He told the NLJ that finding wasn't biased.

The study looked at how many opinions were followed five or more times and three or more times. California came out on top with 45 opinions followed five or more times, followed by Washington with 17 and Arizona with 16.

Dear told The Recorder that California's leading role is credited to the "fantastic smorgasbord of cases from which to choose," considering 5,400 petitions for review and 3,000 original writs annually.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on February 29, 2008 (boomark / email).