Baird v. State Bar of Arizona’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
154 federal appellate · 66 district · 84 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 524 later decisions (49 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably District of Columbia Court of Appeals v. Feldman (1983), Branzburg v. Hayes (1972)
154 federal appellate · 66 district · 84 state decisions — followed in 21 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Relies on Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Illinois v. Allen · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama Patterson · West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette · Keyishian v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of NY
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 524 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The practice of law is not a matter of grace, but of right for one who is qualified by his learning and his moral character.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage“[W]hen a State attempts to make inquiries about a person's beliefs or associations, its power is limited by the First Amendment. Broad and sweeping state inquiries into these protected areas ... discourage citizens from exercising rights protected by the Constitution.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage“has a legitimate interest in determining whether (an individual) has the qualities of character and the professional competence requisite to the practice of law.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.