Jonah B. Gelbach (Yale Law School; Yale University - Department of Economics Program in Applied Economics and Policy) has posted Locking the Doors to Discovery? Conceptual Challenges in and Empirical Results for Assessing the Effects of Twombly and Iqbal on Access to Discovery (Yale Law Journal, Forthcoming) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
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Many observers believe the Supreme Court’s Twombly and Iqbal opinions have curtailed civil justice access. I argue that observed changes in Rule 12(b)(6) grant rates fail to account for party selection effects and provide an adjusted measure of Twombly-Iqbal’s impact on certain cases’ probability of failing to reach discovery. Using public data, I construct lower bounds on this impact. After accounting for the possibility that plaintiffs will re-plead cases against which MTDs are granted with leave to amend, the empirical results suggest Twombly-Iqbal ultimately will have a substantial impact on those cases that face MTDs filed in the post-Iqbal period.
Highly recommended!
