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Full-Text Articles in Law

Newsroom: Court As Classroom 03-01-2018, Roger Williams University School Of Law Mar 2018

Newsroom: Court As Classroom 03-01-2018, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.


A Comprehensive Theory Of Civil Settlement, J. J. Prescott, Kathryn E. Spier Apr 2016

A Comprehensive Theory Of Civil Settlement, J. J. Prescott, Kathryn E. Spier

Articles

A settlement is an agreement between parties to a dispute. In everyday parlance and in academic scholarship, settlement is juxtaposed with trial or some other method of dispute resolution in which a third-party factfinder ultimately picks a winner and announces a score. The “trial versus settlement” trope, however, represents a false choice; viewing settlement solely as a dispute-ending alternative to a costly trial leads to a narrow understanding of how dispute resolution should and often does work. In this Article, we describe and defend a much richer concept of settlement, amounting in effect to a continuum of possible agreements between …


Narrative And Drama In The American Trial, Robert P. Burns Jan 2012

Narrative And Drama In The American Trial, Robert P. Burns

Faculty Working Papers

This short essay summarizes an understanding of the trial as a medium in which law is realized or actualized, rather than imposed or enforced. It suggests that we should pay close attention to the actual practices that prevail at trial, its "consciously structured hybrid" of languages and practices, if we want to understand the nature of law.


What Will We Lose If The Trial Vanishes?, Robert P. Burns Jan 2011

What Will We Lose If The Trial Vanishes?, Robert P. Burns

Faculty Working Papers

The number of trials continues to decline andfederal civil trials have almost completely disappeared. This essay attempts to address the significance of this loss, to answer the obvious question, "So what?" It argues against taking a resigned or complacent attitude toward an important problem for our public culture. It presents a short description of the trial's internal structure, recounts different sorts of explanations, and offers an inventory of the kinds of wounds this development would inflict.


The Dignity, Rights, And Responsibilities Of The Jury: On The Structure Of Normative Argument, Robert P. Burns Jan 2011

The Dignity, Rights, And Responsibilities Of The Jury: On The Structure Of Normative Argument, Robert P. Burns

Faculty Working Papers

Many theorists follow an inevitably circular method in evaluating legal institutions and practices. "Considered judgments of justice" embedded in practices and institutions in which we have a high level of confidence can serve as partial evidence for the principles with which they are consistent, principles that can then have broader implications. Conversely, principles that we have good reason to embrace can serve as partial justification for institutions and practices with which they are consistent. This is the heart of Rawls' notion of "reflective equilibrium," where we "work at both ends" to justify institutions, practices, and principles. This method is applicable …


The Death Of The American Trial, Robert P. Burns Jan 2009

The Death Of The American Trial, Robert P. Burns

Faculty Working Papers

This short essay is a summary of my assessment of the meaning of the "vanishing trial" phenomenon. It addresses the obvious question: "So what?" It first briefly reviews the evidence of the trial's decline. It then sets out the steps necessary to understand the political and social signficance of our vastly reducing the trial's importance among our modes of social ordering. The essay serves as the Introduction to a book, The Death of the American Trial, soon to be published by the University of Chicago Press.


Not Quite A World Without Trials: Why International Dispute Resolution Is Increasingly Judicialized, Andrea Kupfer Schneider Jan 2006

Not Quite A World Without Trials: Why International Dispute Resolution Is Increasingly Judicialized, Andrea Kupfer Schneider

Journal of Dispute Resolution

The focus of this brief essay is to first outline some of the factors leading to increasing judicialization on the international level where public disputes (disputes between countries) are increasingly resolved by a neutral third party. In some cases, this increased judicialization includes arbitration (which we might put under the category of ADR in the U.S.). However, the use of arbitration at the international level is not ADR as we would define it in the U.S., since the important element at the international level is that the decision-making power is handed over to a third party-whether we call that a …


Designer Trials, Elizabeth Thornburg Jan 2006

Designer Trials, Elizabeth Thornburg

Journal of Dispute Resolution

This article is a thought experiment, or maybe a nightmare, about the intersection of freedom of contract and the trials that have not vanished. Could contracting parties effectively agree in advance of a dispute that any litigation of the case will comply with certain rules? Would such an agreement be enforced even in a contract of adhesion? If so, parties with sufficient bargaining leverage could design away many of the characteristics of litigation that they find unappealing without the need to resort to private processes. The result: a designer trial with the procedural deck stacked in favor of the party …


Natural Forum And The Elusive Significance Of Jurisdiction Agreements, Tiong Min Yeo Dec 2005

Natural Forum And The Elusive Significance Of Jurisdiction Agreements, Tiong Min Yeo

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The Singapore court's power to stay its proceedings by reason of its not being the appropriate forum the proceedings ought not to be continued is underpinned by the common law principle enunciated in The Spiliada that generally a trial should be heard in its natural forum. The Rainbow Joy adds significantly to Singapore law on forum non conveniens on two important points. First, it establishes that it is not necessary to show that the alternative forum abroad is constituted as a court of law. Secondly, the case establishes that whether there is a defense claim on the merits is an …


Procedural Justice Research And The Paucity Of Trials, Chris Guthrie Jan 2002

Procedural Justice Research And The Paucity Of Trials, Chris Guthrie

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Likewise, I do not mean to criticize Hensler's contribution to this volume. Although she is a prominent procedural justice researcher herself, she is certainly not responsible for the inattention given to the questions I have identified, and her measured conclusions about what might be inferred from the existing research are certainly appropriate. Indeed, I take Hensler' s broader point to be that courts should not mandate mediation simply because they believe as a matter of faith that mediation is a "better" process than others." Rather, courts should base their decisions, to the extent possible, on empirical evidence about the relative …


"Wait A Minute. This Is Where I Came In." A Trial Lawyer's Search For Alternative Dispute Resolution, Steven H. Goldberg Jan 1997

"Wait A Minute. This Is Where I Came In." A Trial Lawyer's Search For Alternative Dispute Resolution, Steven H. Goldberg

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

My original answer to the question “Alternative to what?” was “the adversary system.” ADR held out the promise of a better way than the adversary system for handling at least some of the inevitable friction in society. I could not define “better” precisely, but it contained notions of faster, cheaper, less contentious, less aggravating, or more likely to leave the parties talking to each other when the process was over. My current answer to the question “Alternative to what?” is that ADR is not an alternative. Alternative Dispute Resolution courses have become Dispute Resolution. In this society, dispute resolution is …


Catch-22 Of Mandatory Summary Jury Trials, The, Daniel K. O'Toole Jan 1990

Catch-22 Of Mandatory Summary Jury Trials, The, Daniel K. O'Toole

Journal of Dispute Resolution

Since its inception nearly ten years ago, the summary jury trial has received almost unanimous acclaim as an extremely effective means of inducing settlement and avoiding protracted litigation.' The settlement technique continued to be used with virtually no opposition2 until some courts began using the summary jury trial as a mandatory settlement mechanism. 3 Within the federal court system, a split of authority has developed as to the permissibility of a trial judge imposing a summary jury trial settlement procedure on litigants.4 Strandell v. Jackson County, Ill.5 and McKay v. Ashland Oil, Inc.6 are two of the more recent cases …


Private Settlement As Alternative Adjudication: A Rationale For Negotiation Ethics, Robert B. Gordon Jan 1985

Private Settlement As Alternative Adjudication: A Rationale For Negotiation Ethics, Robert B. Gordon

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

A rule of ethics like the one proposed in this Note takes a step toward this goal. Part I explores the general nature of unethical settlement negotiation, and the inadequate responses offered by both the American Bar Association Model Code of Professional Responsibility and the American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct. Part II presents a theory for recognizing private settlement negotiation as a substantive component of the adjudicatory process, deserving of all the ethical protections afforded forensic litigation. Part III evaluates certain proposals for reform and responds to various criticisms commonly leveled against efforts to regulate private negotiation …