We study the role of attorneys as arbitrators in securities arbitration, using a dataset of 422 randomly selected arbitrators and their 6724 arbitration awards from 1992 to 2006. We find that arbitrators who also represent brokerage firms or brokers in other arbitrations award significantly less...

Plaintiffs’ lawyers in the United States play a key role in combating corporate fraud. Shareholders who lose money as a result of fraud can file securities class actions to recover their losses, but most shareholders do not have enough money at stake to justify overseeing the cases filed on...

Nearly everyone thinks that judges are underpaid, but theory and evidence provide little support for this view. Theory suggests that increasing judicial salaries will improve judicial performance only if judges can be sanctioned for performing inadequately or if the appointments process reliably...