Bao Kham Chau (Cornell University - Cornell Tech NYC; Rebooting Social Media Initiative) has posted Measuring Legal Importance: From Case Citations to Linguistic Shifts on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This Article introduces a novel empirical method for measuring judicial importance, moving beyond citation counts and other proxies of influence. It proposes using computational text analysis techniques, such as unsupervised topic modeling, to analyze linguistic shifts-changes in the linguistic patterns and structures of the relevant legal documents-as an alternative proxy for a judicial opinion's importance.
As a case study, the Article examines a type of legal documents-patents-drafted before and after Blackboard, Inc. v. Desire2Learn, Inc., 574 F.3d 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2009). It provides evidence showing that the Blackboard decision, despite having a relatively low citation count, triggered an empirically observable linguistic shift (i.e., changes in the length, language, and structure) in the relevant patents. Notwithstanding the specificity of the case study, the Article suggests that it is possible to use linguistic shift as a proxy to determine judicial influence in any legal field.
Highly recommended.
