An Empirical Analysis of Life Tenure: A Response to Professors Calabresi & Lindgren (Response to Steven G. Calabresi and James Lindgren, Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Vol. 29, P. 769, 2006‪)‬

INTRODUCTION Opposition to life tenure has been steadily mounting in the legal academy, and Professors Steven Calabresi and James Lindgren are among those leading the charge. In an article published in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, (1) Calabresi and Lindgren denounce life tenure as "fundamentally flawed" (2) and "essentially a relic of pre-democratic times." (3) They deserve credit for assembling the most comprehensive critique of life tenure to date, carefully documenting what they see as its major drawbacks, and proposing a constitutional amendment providing for fixed, non-renewable eighteen-year terms for Supreme Court Justices. (4) Their article has attracted well-deserved attention among legal scholars and in the popular press. To its credit, it has found champions of all political persuasions. (5)