ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on matters of judges’ self-interest and self-preservation when they go to work, and how these intrinsic personal and professional motivations may affect judicial decisions. Scholars from the Law and Economics movement, who apply economic theory to the study and analysis of law, have investigated how judges’ personal and professional motivations act as influences on their decision-making by conceiving of judges as labourers in a labour market. Judges’ ability to make decisions may be compromised by an overwhelming workload which may be both the product of an external factor and the internal reaction of the judge to it. Concerns of workload aside, Tom S. Clark and his colleagues offered perhaps the most vivid insights into the direct effects of leisure on judicial performance. Having considered leisure, workload and the effect of looming retirement, the chapter examines how judges, just like everyone else, may care about their reputation and about how they are perceived by others.
