Law Commons^™

Much Ado About Pluralities: Pride And Precedent Amidst The Cacophy Of Concurrences, And Re-Percolation After Rapanos, Donald J. Kochan, Melissa M. Berry, Matthew J. Parlow

Donald J. Kochan

Conflicts created by concurrences and pluralities in court decisions create confusion in law and lower court interpretation. Rule of law values require that individuals be able to identify controlling legal principles. That task is complicated when pluralities and concurrences contribute to the vagueness or uncertainty that leaves us wondering what the controlling rule is or attempting to predict what it will evolve to become. The rule of law is at least handicapped when continuity or confidence or confusion infuse our understanding of the applicable rules. This Article uses the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Rapanos v. United States to …

The Effect Of Judicial Expedience On Attorney Fees In Class Actions, Eric Helland, Jonathan Klick

All Faculty Scholarship

Judges facing exogenous constraints on their pecuniary income have an incentive to reduce their workload to increase their private welfare. In the face of an increase in caseload, this incentive will induce judges to attempt to terminate some cases more rapidly. In class action cases, failing to grant an attorney fee request will delay termination. This conflict is likely to lead judges to authorize higher fees as court congestion increases. Using two data sets of class action settlements, we show that attorney fees are significantly and positively related to the congestion level of the court hearing the case.

Eliminating The Judicial Function In Consumer Bankruptcy, Rafael I. Pardo

Scholarship@WashULaw

The centerpiece of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 has been the means test, a formulaic statutory directive pursuant to which courts are to presume abuse of the bankruptcy system by Chapter 7 debtors who have an ability to repay past debts with future income. This Essay provides a new insight into means testing by arguing that, more than anything else, it has brought about a significant change in the institutional design of bankruptcy courts: namely, the increased blurring of administrative and judicial functions. The Essay concludes that this development should be cause for concern as …

Rhetoric Of Disputes In The Courts, The Media, And The Legislature, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Two Valuable Treatises On Civil Procedure, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Judicial Accountability To The Past, Present, And Future: Precedent, Politics And Power, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Jurisdictional Conflict And Jurisdictional Equilibration: Paths To A Via Media, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Feeney Amendment And The Continuing Rise Of Prosecutorial Power To Plea Bargain, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Lawyer For The Situation, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

"Announcement" By Federal Judicial Nominees, Geoffrey C. Hazard Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Apprendi In The States: The Virtues Of Federalism As A Structural Limit On Errors, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Implications Of Transition Theory For Stare Decisis, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

What Do We Mean By "Judicial Independence"?, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

In this article, the author argues that the concept of "judicial independence" has served more as an object of rhetoric than it has of sustained study. He views the scholarly literatures that treat it as ships passing in the night, each subject to weaknesses that reflect the needs and fashions of the discipline, but all tending to ignore courts other than the Supreme Court of the United States. Seeking both greater rigor and greater flexibility than one usually finds in public policy debates about, and in the legal and political science literatures on, judicial independence, the author attributes much of …

Lawyers On The Auction Block: Evaluation And Selection Of Class Counsel By Auction, Jill E. Fisch

All Faculty Scholarship

The lead counsel auction has attracted increasing attention. Auction advocates argue that auctions introduce competitive market forces that improve the selection and compensation of class counsel. The benefits of the auction, the;' claim, include lower legal fees and better representation. Careful scrutiny reveals that auction advocates have overlooked substantial methodological problems with the design and implementation of the lead counsel auction. Even if these problems were overcome, the auction procedure is flawed: Auctions are poor tools for selecting firms based on multiple criteria, compromise the judicial role, and are unlikely to produce reasonable fee awards. Although the existing record is …

Judicial Fact-Finding And Sentence Enhancements In A World Of Guilty Pleas, Stephanos Bibas

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Architecture Of Judicial Independence, Stephen B. Burbank

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Dark Matter Of Judicial Review: A Constitutional Census Of The 1990s, Seth F. Kreimer

All Faculty Scholarship

Most debate about the power of judicial review proceeds as if courts primarily invoke the Constitution against the considered judgment of elected legislatures; most constitutional commentary focuses on confrontations between the United States Supreme Court and state or federal legislatures. In fact, the federal courts most often enforce constitutional norms against administrative agencies and street-level bureaucrats, and the norms are enforced not by the Supreme Court but by the federal trial courts. In this Article, Professor Kreimer surveys this "dark matter" of our constitutional universe.

The Article compares the 292 cases involving constitutional claims decided by the Supreme Court during …

Judicial Review Of Federal Administrative Action: Quest For The Optimum Forum, David P. Currie, Frank I. Goodman

All Faculty Scholarship

Professors Currie and Goodman present a comprehensive analysis of the variables that must be isolated and weighed in determining the optimum forum for judicial review of administrative action. While the backdrop for this study is the caseload crisis presently confronting the federal courts of appeals, their discussion illuminates the requsites for optimum judicial review generally.

Failing to perceive any compelling reason to single out administrative cases for review (in separate courts, the authors argue against the creation of special administrative appeals courts. Even if such courts were to enjoy broad subject matter jurisdiction over the most demanding aspects of the …

Insanity As A Defense: The Bifurcated Trial, David W. Louisell, Geoffrey Hazard

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.