Empirical Analysis of Bankruptcy Certiorari, An

Few scholars have explored the Supreme Court's role in creating private law, a surprising oversight given that private law often affects the lives of individuals as much as public law. This article focuses on one area of private law: federal bankruptcy law. The Court is the Bankruptcy Code's final arbiter. In addition to the social benefits and costs of the federal bankruptcy system, vast amounts of financial wealth depend on the Court's bankruptcy decisions.

This article analyzes data from every certiorari petition involving either a bankruptcy case or an issue of bankruptcy law since the Bankruptcy Code's 1978 enactment.' Part II of this article details the various arguments and hypotheses that have emerged from the scholarship about Supreme Court certiorari.