Judicial promotions shape the composition of higher courts and, by extension, the development of the law. The process by which a district judge is elevated to the appellate bench is often portrayed as meritocratic: a reflection of skill, professionalism, and impartiality. Yet, like other aspects of judicial administration, promotions occur within a political and institutional context. This project aims understand what drives these promotions, as it offers a unique window into how political and institutional incentives influence the judiciary itself.

Drawing from millions of court opinions from the Caselaw Access Project and CourtListener database, we map how judges cite one another, how often a judge gets overturned at a higher level, how often a judge rules in favour of the state, and how these behaviours evolve over time. By merging these metrics with biographical and political data, it quantifies what we call “judge competence” and examines how it correlates with the probability of promotion from the district to appellate courts, as opposed to variables that are not related to competence, e.g. political affiliation. The result offers empirical insight into how institutional incentives, social networks, and performance signals interact to shape the composition of higher courts in the United States.