Law Commons^™

The End Of An Era? Federal Civil Procedure After The 2015 Amendments, Adam N. Steinman

Faculty Scholarship

The recent amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were the most controversial in decades. The biggest criticisms concerned pleading standards and access to discovery. Many feared that the amendments would undermine the simplified, merits-driven approach that the original drafters of the Federal Rules envisioned and would weaken access to justice and the enforcement of substantive rights and obligations.

This Article argues that the amendments that came into effect on December 1, 2015, do not mandate a more restrictive approach to pleading or discovery. Although there was legitimate cause for alarm given the advisory committee’s earlier proposals and supporting …

Recent Trends In Discovery In Arbitration And In The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure, Paul Radvany

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

I Could Have Been A Contender: Summary Jury Trial As A Means To Overcome Iqbal's Negative Effects Upon Pre-Litigation Communication, Negotiation And Early, Consensual Dispute Resolution, Nancy A. Welsh

Faculty Scholarship

With its recent decisions in Ashcroft v. Iqbal and Bell Atlantic v. Twombly, the Supreme Court may be intentionally or unintentionally “throwing the fight,” at least in the legal contests between many civil rights claimants and institutional defendants. The most obvious feared effect is reduction of civil rights claimants’ access to the expressive and coercive power of the courts. Less obviously, the Supreme Court may be effectively undermining institutions’ motivation to negotiate, mediate - or even communicate with and listen to - such claimants before they initiate legal action. Thus, the Supreme Court’s recent decisions have the potential to deprive …

Balancing The Pleading Equation, Paul Stancil

Faculty Scholarship

Pleading standards present a tale of two asymmetries. The first is informational: Plaintiffs don't know as much as defendants about defendants' alleged wrongful behavior. Given that, a liberal pleading standard may be sensible; overly demanding pleading standards may ultimately deny justice to worthy plaintiffs who cannot know critical details of their claims before filing.

But informational asymmetry is sometimes counterbalanced by a competing cost asymmetry. In certain circumstances, the cost of litigation is radically different for plaintiffs and defendants. The primary driver of this disparity is liberal discovery; in certain kinds of cases - consumer antitrust cases, for example: defendants' …