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these insights we generate several hypotheses.
Seeking a Fair Hearing
One hypothesis is that judicial pioneers are driven by a quest for fairness, and they
believe their quest might be satisfied in a courtroom. As Tom Tyler and his colleagues argue,
“people choose the procedures that they would like to use to resolve their disputes in large part
through assessments of procedural fairness. ...people do not simply choose the procedure they
think will allow them to win. They are actually interested in finding a procedure that they think
will be fair...” (Tyler et al. 1997, 78; also Ewick and Silbey 1998, 133, 147). Tyler and others
support their argument with evidence that litigation occurs despite its cost-ineffectiveness and
that evaluations of court experiences are based on assessments of fairness rather the desirability
of outcomes (Feeley 1979; Lind et al. 1990; Lowenstein et al. 1993, 135; Tyler et al. 1997, 80).
The implicit assumption is that the decision to litigate in the first place is motivated by similar
priorities. Judicial pioneers may want to “have their day in court” or “tell their side of the story”
in a venue where they will be respected as equals under the law. The greater the perceived
fairness of judicial processes, the more willing individuals may be to litigate.
The Role of Political Disadvantage
Individuals may become judicial pioneers because they are alienated from representative
political institutions and processes, or what Cortner (1968) calls “politically disadvantaged.”
Where the politically advantaged feel well-represented by elections, legislatures, and other
conventional political institutions, the politically disadvantaged feel excluded from these
institutions, see courts as their only recourse in the political system, and consequently litigate
more frequently (Vose 1959; Cortner 1968; Scheppele and Walker 1991). The politically
disadvantaged may also be economically disadvantaged, but they need not be. The hypothesis
Convention