Trump v. Biden Judges

By Stephen J. Choi, Mitu Gulati

Curious about the merits of judges Donald Trump appointed in his first term as president, we looked in an earlier study at the performance during 2020 to mid-2023 of the judges Trump appointed as compared to those appointed by other presidents. On a set of three measures--productivity, quality and independence--the Trump judges performed as well, if not better, than judges appointed by Presidents Obama and Bush. As for President Biden's appointees, they did systematically worse than the Trump appointees. Biden judicial selections were, at the time we did our prior study, however, new judges. Maybe, we wondered, these judges would do better on our measures a year or two hence? What follows are our preliminary results on that question. Our short answer is that Trump judges continue to dominate the Biden judges.