Mark Kelman

State Disparities in the Diagnosis and Placement of Pupils with Learning Disabilities

We investigated the hypothesis that interstate disparities in the diagnosis of pupils with learning disabilities (LD) are more strongly correlated with demographic and sociopolitical factors than with the biological prevalence of the disability. We also investigated the relationship of these factors to placement practices. Thirteen independent variables representing state characteristics were simultaneously regressed against each of seven static dependent variables, measuring diagnostic and placement practices in 1989, and two dynamic dependent variables, measuring changes in practices between 1976 and 1989. Results of the regression indicated that although demographic and sociopolitical factors explained none of the total prevalence of the four most common physical disabilities (adjusted R 2[R 2] = 0), they did explain to a moderate degree the state prevalence of LD (R 2 ranged from .15 to .28), and were more predictive still depending on measure of LD prevalence. Moreover, these same factors strongly predicted the extent to which states mainstreamed their pupils (R 2 = .59) and the size of the nonmainstreamed cognitively disabled (LD and educable mentally retarded) population (R 2 = .56).

Context-Dependence in Legal Decision Making

Classical theories of choice associate with each option a unique value such that, given an offered set, the decision maker chooses the option of highest value. An immediate consequence is context-independence: the relative ranking of any two options should not vary with the presence or absence of other options. Five experiments reveal two systematic violations of context-independence in legal decision making: the same option is evaluated more favorably when it is intermediate rather than extreme in the offered set (compromise), and the same option is evaluated more favorably in the presence of a similar option that is clearly inferior to it (contrast). Prescriptive implications of context-dependence in legal decision making are discussed.

The heuristics debate

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW 1. The Framework PART TWO: THE CONTROVERSY OVER THE NATURE OF HEURISTICS 2. The Heuristics and Biases School 3. The Fast and Frugal Heuristics School 4. Fast and Frugal School Objections to the Heuristics and Biases Program 5. (with Nicholas Richman Kelman): Objections to the Fast and Frugal School Program PART THREE: IMPLICATIONS FOR LAW 6. Criminal Punishment and Cognition 7. Regulating Markets 8. Cognition and Value Incommensurability 9. Classical Orthodoxy and Legal Realist Responses THROUGH THE LENS OF THE HEURISTICS DEBATE PART FOUR: FINAL THOUGHTS 10. Conclusion

Does Class Size Affect the Gender Gap? A Natural Experiment in Law

We study a unique natural experiment in which Stanford Law School randomly assigned first-year students to small or large sections of mandatory courses from 2001 to 2011. We provide evidence that assignment to small sections closed a slight (but substantively and highly statistically significant) gender gap existing in large sections from 2001 to 2008; that reforms in 2008 that modified the grading system and instituted small graded writing and simulation-intensive courses eliminated the gap entirely; and that women, if anything, outperformed men in small simulation-based courses. Our evidence suggests that pedagogical policy—particularly small class sizes—can reduce, and even reverse, achievement gaps in postgraduate education.

A Guide to Critical Legal Studies.

Introduction 1. Rules and Standards 2. The Subjectivity of Value 3. Intentionalism and Determinism 4. Legal Economists and Normative Social Theory 5. Legal Economists and Conservative Preferences 6. The Deification of Process 7. Visions of History 8. Critical Views of the Role of Law 9. Toward a Cognitive Theory of Legitimation Notes Index