Follow the Leader

Today's New York Times is reporting the results of a study that shows that the "California Supreme Court is the most influential state court in the nation." The study, to which the Times story links, is based on citation analysis, and was published in a recent issue of the UC Davis Law Review. It is interesting to note that Kentucky ranks at the bottom of the fifty states in terms of the influence of its high court. According to the study, reasons for the California Supreme Court's influence are that "California's size and diversity gave its Supreme Court an enormous inventory of interesting cases to choose from; that lower-court decisions there tended to present the pertinent issues well; and that the Supreme Court had a professional legal staff whose main job was to analyze petitions for review."