Law Commons^™

Boomerang Litigation: How Convenient Is Forum Non Conveniens In Transnational Litigation?, M. Ryan Casey, Barrett Ristroph

Brigham Young University International Law & Management Review

No abstract provided.

In The Dark: A Consumer Perspective On Fcc Broadcast Indecency Denials, Genelle I. Belmas, Gail D. Love, Brian C. Foy

Federal Communications Law Journal

Indecency regulation has been a hot political and social topic since Janet Jackson revealed her breast during the 2004 Super Bowl halftime show. The number of indecency complaints the FCC receives each year continues to rise. Moreover, to further complicate matters, in 2007 the Second Circuit overturned the FCC policy that so-called "fleeting expletives" would be considered indecent. However, there has been no systematic review of the complaints from the perspective of the complainant. How has the FCC managed its increasing indecency complaint load, and what does it tell consumers who have taken the time to write formal complaints about …

Access To Information, Access To Justice: The Role Of Presuit Investigatory Discovery, Lonny Sheinkopf Hoffman

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

What is the relationship between access to information and access to justice? Private parties obviously have many publicly available points of access to the information they seek in order to file a lawsuit. Lawyers can talk to their clients and other willing witnesses. Documents can be gathered. Specific statutes may sometimes permit information to be obtained before a formal lawsuit is brought. On other occasions, however, information needed or desired will lie solely within the exclusive knowledge and control of another The ability of private parties to compel the production of information, documents, or testimony before litigation rarely has been …

Appellate Practice And Procedure, Roland F.L. Hall

Mercer Law Review

This Article surveys decisions addressing appellate law and procedure handed down by the Georgia appellate courts between June 1, 2006 and May 31, 2007. The cases discussed fall into the following categories: (1) appellate jurisdiction, (2) preserving the record, (3) timeliness of appeal, and (4) miscellaneous cases of interest.

Trial Practice And Procedure, Kate S. Cook, Alan J. Hamilton, Brandon L. Peak, John C. Morrison Iii

Mercer Law Review

The Georgia Appellate Courts continue to consider and clarify the impact of the Tort Reform Act of 2005 on trial practice and procedure while addressing other legislation and case law similarly imperative to litigation in Georgia courts. Although the Georgia General Assembly enacted less legislation related to trial practice and procedure during this survey period than in recent years, the few laws passed are noteworthy.

Pro Se Litigation: Best Practices From A Judge's Perspective, Hon. Beverly W. Snukals, Glen H. Sturtevant Jr.

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Why Children Still Need A Lawyer, Marcia Robinson Lowry, Sara Bartosz

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Every day approximately 500,000 children across the United States wake up in foster care, most in foster family homes, though many others in group homes and institutions. These children entered the state foster care system as innocent victims of abuse or neglect occurring in their birth homes. As wards of the state, they depend completely on the government to provide for their essential safety and wellbeing and to reconnect them with a permanent family, hopefully their own.

Though state child welfare agencies possess fundamental legal obligations under the United States Constitution and federal and state statutes to provide adequate care …

Appellate Practice And Procedure, K. Todd Butler

Mercer Law Review

This Article reviews federal appellate procedure decisions in the Eleventh Circuit during the 2006 calendar year. Questions considered this year include the role of the notice of appeal in federal appellate jurisdiction, which is addressed in the first section below. The second section addresses the necessity of a final order for appeal, with emphasis on conditional final orders and when they are subject to appeal. The third section addresses the necessity of raising issues before the district court in order to preserve them for appeal.

Class Actions, Thomas M. Byrne

Mercer Law Review

In terms of significant class action decisions, 2006 was one of the Eleventh Circuit's busiest years in recent memory. Among other rulings, the court established the ground rules for Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(2) classes. The year also presented the court with its first opportunity to address some of the many interpretative questions posed by the Class Action Fairness Act of 2005 ("CAFA").

Trial Practice And Procedure, John O'Shea Sullivan, Ashby L. Kent

Mercer Law Review

The 2006 survey period yielded several noteworthy decisions in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals relating to federal trial practice and procedure, many of which involved issues of first impression. This Article analyzes several recent developments in the Eleventh Circuit, including significant rulings in the areas of class actions, subject matter jurisdiction, statutory interpretation, judicial estoppel, civil procedure, and other issues of interest to the trial practitioner.

Protecting Fair Use With Fogerty: Toward A New Dual Standard, John A. Fonstad

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Copyright law exists to promote the progress of art and science. It achieves this by balancing limited grants of rights to authors against public access to works. However, copyright holders have upset this balance and tilted the law in their favor One cause of this phenomenon is that the benefit of public access to works is diffused throughout the entire public while the benefit of rights in works is concentrated in the copyright holder. This problem is especially prevalent in the context of litigation where copyright holders (plaintiffs) often stand to gain more through victory than copyright users (defendants). As …

Should Patent Infringement Require Proof Of Copying?, Mark A. Lemley

Michigan Law Review

Patent infringement is a strict liability offense. Patent law gives patent owners not just the right to prevent others from copying their ideas, but the power to control the use of their idea--even by those who independently develop a technology with no knowledge of the patent or the patentee. This is a power that exists nowhere else in intellectual property (IP) or real property law, but it is a one that patentees have had, with rare exceptions, since the inception of the Republic. In an important paper in the Michigan Law Review, Samson Vermont seeks to change this, arguing …

Class Certification And Interlocutory Review: Rule 23(F) In The Courts, Lori Irish Bauman

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

Rethinking Criminal Corporate Liability, Andrew Weissmann, David Newman

Indiana Law Journal

Under current federal law, a corporation, no matter how large or small, is criminally liable if a member of the organization commits a crime within the scope of employment and at least in part with the intent to benefit the company. This Article challenges that doctrine and contends that where it seeks to charge a corporation criminally, the government should bear the burden of establishing as an additional criminal element that the corporation failed to have reasonable policies and procedures to prevent the employee 's conduct. Narrowing the scope of criminal corporate liability is supported by the reasoning of a …

The Right To Refuse And The Obligation To Comply: Challenging The Gamesmanship Model Of Criminal Procedure, Margaret Raymond

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Dialogue On Death & Deference: Gonzales V. Oregon, Stacy A. Tromble

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bridging The "Philosophical Void" In Punitive Damages: Empowering Plaintiffs And Society Through Curative Damages, Leah R. Mervine

Buffalo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Mind Over Morality, Steven K. Erickson

Buffalo Law Review

Book review of Charles Patrick Ewing & Joseph T. McCann's Minds on Trial

Settler's Remorse, Floyd Abrams

Michigan Law Review

Who can quarrel with the notion that settling civil cases is generally a good thing? Litigation is expensive, time-consuming, preoccupying, and often personally destructive. Our courts are overburdened and, in any event, imperfect decision-making entities. It may even be true that, more often than not, "the absolute result of a trial is not as high a quality of justice as is the freely negotiated, give a little, take a little settlement." But not every case should be settled. Many are worthless. The settlement of others could too easily lead to a torrent of unwarranted litigation. Sometimes, as Professor Owen Fiss …

The Litigation Explosin, Proposed Reforms, And Their Consequences, Michael D. Johnston

Brigham Young University Journal of Public Law

No abstract provided.

Definitely Not Harmless: The Supreme Court Holds That The Erroneous Disqualification Of Retained Counsel Warrants Automatic Reversal In United States V. Gonzalez-Lopez, James A. Robson

Mercer Law Review

In United States v. Gonzalez-Lopez, the United States Supreme Court held that the erroneous disqualification of a criminal defendant's retained choice of counsel violates the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution and must result in the automatic reversal of the defendant's conviction. In reaching this conclusion, the Court rejected the Government's argument that a defendant who is denied his choice of counsel must prove prejudice by showing the defendant's substitute counsel was ineffective within the meaning of Strickland v. Washington. Instead, the Court concluded that because a complete violation of the Sixth Amendment's Counsel Clause occurs when …

Crawford V. Washington And Davis V. Washington'S Originalism: Historical Arguments Showing Child Abuse Victims' Statements To Physicians Are Nontestimonial And Admissible As An Exception To The Confrontation Clause, Tom Harbinson

Mercer Law Review

Under Crawford v. Washington and Davis v. Washington, the Supreme Court has created a new interpretation of the right of confrontation that holds out-of-court testimonial statements inadmissible without cross-examination. In order to determine if statements for purposes of medical diagnosis and treatment should continue to be an exception to confrontation, this Article reviews the historical evidence cited by the Court. The Court's originalist analysis holds that the only exception for what the Court refers to as "testimonial statements" is the exception for dying declarations. This Article establishes that a significant number of confrontation exceptions existed for testimonial statements in …

Illuminating Secrecy: A New Economic Analysis Of Confidential Settlements, Scott A. Moss

Michigan Law Review

Even the most hotly contested lawsuits typically end in a confidential settlement forbidding the parties from disclosing their allegations, evidence, or settlement amount. Confidentiality draws fierce criticism for harming third parties by concealing serious misdeeds like discrimination, pollution, defective manufacturing, and sexual abuse. Others defend confidentiality as a mutually beneficial pay-for-silence bargain that facilitates settlement, serves judicial economy, and prevents frivolous copycat lawsuits. This debate is based in economic logic, yet most analyses have been surprisingly shallow as to how confidentiality affects incentives to settle. Depicting a more nuanced, complex reality of litigation and settlement, this Article reaches several conclusions …

Masthead, Jtaa Editors

Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy

No abstract provided.

Developing Wind Power Projects In Massachusetts: Anticipating And Avoiding Litigation In The Quest To Harness The Wind, Mike Koehler

Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy

No abstract provided.

Not Just Doctrine: The True Motivation For Federal Incorporation And International Human Rights Litigation, Daniel Abebe

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article challenges the universalist theory of international law upon which federal incorporation of CIL and international human rights litigation rely. It unpacks the international relations (IR) theory paradigms that support the universalist theory, and discusses a competing theory that views state compliance with international law as a function of national self-interest. Working from this perspective, it proposes a framework to evaluate the wisdom of federal incorporation of CIL and the wisdom of international human rights litigation. The framework suggests that federal incorporation of CIL generates sovereignty costs for the United States, and that international human rights litigation complicates the …

Table Of Contents, Jtaa Editors

Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy

No abstract provided.

Editor's Note, Jenna Phipps

Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy

No abstract provided.

Front Matter, Jtaa Editors

Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy

No abstract provided.

After Crawford: Using The Confrontation Clause In Massachusetts Courts, David A. Lowy, Katherine Bowles Dudich

Suffolk Journal of Trial and Appellate Advocacy

No abstract provided.