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Full-Text Articles in Law
A Right To Legal Aid: The Aba Model Access Act In International Perspective, James Maxeiner
A Right To Legal Aid: The Aba Model Access Act In International Perspective, James Maxeiner
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For over two centuries America has failed to fulfill its revolutionary ideals of bringing equal justice to all. In August 2010 the American Bar Association moved to bring the nation closer to its ideals when it proposed the ABA Model Access Act. The Act would do what the Supreme Court of the United States has refused to do: it would recognize that legal aid in civil litigation is a matter of right and not of charity. The Act is a framework law and leaves many details to be filled in by enacting bodies and by the institutions eventually charged with …
The American "Rule": Assuring The Lion His Share, James Maxeiner
The American "Rule": Assuring The Lion His Share, James Maxeiner
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Court costs in American civil procedure are allocated to the loser (“loser pays”) as elsewhere in the world. When American civil procedure took shape in the 1840s, American lawyers thought that losing parties ought to indemnify winning parties against all expenses of lawsuits. Yet today, attorneys’ fees – the lion’s share of expenses in the words of the General Report – are not allocated this way. By practice – and not by legal rule – attorneys’ fees fall on the parties that incur them. Those fees are not set by statute or court decision, but by agreement between parties and …