Law Commons^™

Reevaluating Where We Stand: A Comprehensive Survey Of America’S Family Justice Systems, Barbara A. Babb

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The call for court reform remains critical in the face of the growing complexity of burgeoning family law cases nationwide. Many states have restructured their court systems using the unified family court model, resolving legal, personal, emotional, and social disputes with the aim of improving the well-being of families and children. Other states utilize the traditional approach, resulting in cases being handled in a fragmented, time-consuming and expensive manner. In this article, Professor Barbara A. Babb presents the results of her nationwide survey regarding how each state handles family law matters. The survey is a follow-up to her comprehensive 1998 …

Introduction To Special Issue On Unified Family Courts, Barbara A. Babb, Gloria Danziger

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No abstract provided.

If You Can't Beat 'Em, Join 'Em: A Pragmatic Approach To Nonprecedential Opinions In The Federal Appellate Courts, Amy E. Sloan

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For many years, judges and academics have debated the pros and cons of non-precedential judicial opinions in the federal appellate courts. Although the utility, necessity, and advisability of non-precedential opinions remain interesting issues to debate, at this point they are somewhat beside the point. Academics have lost the debate on non-precedential opinions. Judges control whether non-precedential opinions are permissible, and judges are not going to give them up anytime soon.

So, as the saying goes, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Rather than continue to debate the merits of non-precedential opinions, the better course of action is to find …

Confusion And Unpredictability In Shareholder Derivative Litigation: The Delaware Courts' Response To Recent Corporate Scandals, Ann M. Scarlett

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The Delaware courts responded to the recent wave of corporate scandals, exemplified by Enron and WorldCom, by changing their approach to shareholder derivative litigation. This Article analyzes the Delaware courts' response to these scandals and concludes that the courts have created doctrinal confusion and introduced unpredictability into derivative litigation. This Article also analyzes the future negative consequences for shareholders, corporations, directors, investors, and other litigants. Finally, this Article proposes improvements for derivative litigation that may alleviate the confusion and unpredictability created by the Delaware courts' response to the recent scandals.

Not Hearing History: A Critique Of Chief Justice Robert’S Reinterpretation Of Brown, Joel K. Goldstein

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In the principal opinion in Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, Chief Justice Roberts invoked Brown v. Board of Education to bolster his view that the United States Constitution forbids the use of virtually all racial classifications. In its closing paragraphs, the plurality opinion claimed that the NAACP attorneys in Brown subscribed to an anticlassification view of the Constitution and that the Court adopted that view. Far from hearing history, the Chief Justice’s opinion sought to rewrite it. The discussion ignored the historic context in which Brown was argued and based its argument on extracting …

Irregular Panels, Samuel P. Jordan

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This article explores a common but essentially unexplored feature of appellate decision-making: decisions by irregular panels. Decisions in the federal courts of appeals are usually reached by panels of three statutorily authorized judges. But appellate panels are often irregular in practice, either because an authorized judge becomes unavailable or because an unauthorized judge is assigned as a panel member. The traditional approach, supported by both statute and case law, has been to accept the former while rejecting the latter. When considered functionally, however, decisions by quorum are at least as problematic as those by panels with unauthorized members. The absence …

Proactive Complementarity: The International Criminal Court And National Courts In The Rome System Of Justice, William W. Burke-White

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When the International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 2002, States, NGOs, and the international community had extraordinarily high expectations that the Court could bring an end to impunity and provide broad-based accountability for international crimes. Nearly five years later, those expectations appear unfulfilled, due to political constraints, resource limitations, and the inability of the ICC to apprehend suspects. This article offers a novel solution to the misalignment of resources, expectations, and legal mandate of the ICC, arguing that the Court must more actively engage with national governments and encourage States to undertake their own prosecutions of international crimes. The …

Commentary On Class Settlements Under Attack, Catherine T. Struve

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No abstract provided.

Greater And Lesser Powers Of Tort Reform: The Primary Jurisdiction Doctrine And State-Law Claims Concerning Fda-Approved Products, Catherine T. Struve

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No abstract provided.

Has The Erie Doctrine Been Repealed By Congress?, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

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No abstract provided.

Judicial Supremacy, Judicial Activism: Cooper V. Aaron And Parents Involved, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

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No abstract provided.

Detention And Interrogation In The Post-9/11 World, Kermit Roosevelt Iii

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Our detention and interrogation policies in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 9/11 have been a disaster. This paper, delivered as a Donahue Lecture at Suffolk University Law School in February 2008, explores the dimensions and source of that disaster. It first offers a clear and intelligible narrative of the construction and implementation of executive detention and interrogation policy and then analyzes the roles played by the different branches of government and the American people in order to understand how we have ended up in our current situation.

Debt And Democracy: Towards A Constitutional Theory Of Bankruptcy, Jonathan C. Lipson

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This article examines the relationship between bankruptcy and constitutional law. Article I, § 8, cl. 4 of the Constitution provides that Congress shall have the power to make “uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies.” While there are many good social, political and economic theories of bankruptcy, there has been surprisingly little effort to explore what it means to have constitutionalized financial distress. This article is a first step in that direction. Constitutional problems with bankruptcy are not new, but present three under-appreciated puzzles: First, why have we put a bankruptcy power in the Constitution, and what does its “peculiar” …