How to Study Judicial Decision-Making During a Pandemic: Lessons from my Book on Divorce Litigation

In this presentation, Michelson will discuss his forthcoming book, Decoupling: Gender Injustice in China’s Divorce Courts (Cambridge University Press, February 2022), with a particular focus on the materials and methods he used to make sense of the decision-making behavior of thousands of judges in over 250 lower courts in two large Chinese provinces. Michelson did not interview a single judge or litigant. Nor did he observe a single trial. How, then, was he able to paint rich and vivid pictures of litigants’ marital disputes, judges’ working conditions, the litigation process, and the institutional forces shaping judicial outcomes in divorce cases? Come to this presentation to find out!