Most Americans think that judges should be, and are, generalists who
decide a wide array of cases. Nonetheless, we now have specialized
courts in many key policy areas. Specializing the Courts provides the
first comprehensive analysis of this growing trend toward specialization
in the federal and state court systems.
Lawrence Baum incisively explores the scope, causes, and consequences of
judicial specialization in four areas that include most specialized
courts: foreign policy and national security, criminal law, economic
issues involving the government, and economic issues in the private
sector. Baum examines the process by which court systems in the United
States have become increasingly specialized and the motives that have
led to the growth of specialization. He also considers the effects of
judicial specialization on the work of the courts by demonstrating that
under certain conditions, specialization can and does have fundamental
effects on the policies that courts make. For this reason, the movement
toward greater specialization constitutes a major change in the
judiciary.