Judicial Impact and Factual Allegations

Abstract

Researchers often study the impact of legal change by investigating judges’ decisions and ignoring litigants. Many scholars believe the Supreme Court’s decisions in Twombly and Iqbal increased how specific factual allegations must be to avoid dismissal, but studies generally fail to find an effect. Using text analysis, I find evidence that litigants and their lawyers changed the information they provided after the decisions in certain types of cases. These results call into question prior studies and illustrate the need to consider the behavior of litigants. They also help shed light on issues of access to courts and separation of powers.