A new study finds "litigant shopping," or choosing plaintiffs with specific demographic attributes, can be used to shape public opinion about the U.S. Supreme Court—but it can also backfire. The paper, "You Better Shop Around: Litigant Characteristics and Supreme Court Support," is published in the Journal of Politics.

Litigant shopping is a well-established practice in which attorneys or political interests identify potential plaintiffs that they believe would be a good "face" for a lawsuit.

"For example, in a case challenging gun restrictions—an issue closely associated with conservative white men—attorneys identified a Black grandmother as a litigant," says Elizabeth Lane, co-author of a paper on the research and an assistant professor of political science at North Carolina State University. "And in a case challenging sex discrimination, attorneys used a male plaintiff.

"The question we wanted to address with this study was whether identifying counter-stereotypical litigants to serve as plaintiffs in lawsuits affects the way the public feels about Supreme Court decisions in those cases."

The study consisted of two separate experiments.

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