We apply a dynamic influence model to the opinions of the US federal courts to examine the role of the US Supreme Court in influencing the direction of legal discourse in the federal courts. We propose two mechanisms for how the Court affects innovation in legal language: a selection mechanism where the Court's influence primarily derives from its discretionary jurisdiction, and an authorship mechanism in which the Court's influence derives directly from its own innovations. To test these alternative hypotheses, we develop a novel influence measure based on a dynamic topic model that separates the Court's own language innovations from those of the lower courts. Applying this measure to the US federal courts, we find that the Supreme Court primarily exercises influence through the selection mechanism, with modest additional influence attributable to the authorship mechanism.

This article is part of the theme issue ‘A complexity science approach to law and governance’.

我们将动态影响模型应用于美国联邦法院的意见，以考察美国最高法院在影响联邦法院法律话语方向方面的作用。我们提出了法院如何影响法律语言创新的两种机制：法院的影响力主要源自其自由裁量管辖权的选择机制，以及法院的影响力直接源自其自身创新的作者机制。为了测试这些替代假设，我们开发了一种基于动态主题模型的新颖影响力衡量标准，该模型将法院自己的语言创新与下级法院的语言创新区分开来。将这一措施应用于美国联邦法院，我们发现最高法院主要通过遴选机制发挥影响力，署名机制也有适度的额外影响力。

本文是主题“法律和治理的复杂性科学方法”的一部分。