Law Commons^™

Lawyer Professional Responsibility In Litigation, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

A perennially-vexing litigation issue concerns the limits of permissible attorney argument. More than a few lawyers have been tripped up by the occasional fuzziness of the line between aggressive advocacy and improper appeals to passion or prejudice. See Craig Lee Montz, Why Lawyers Continue to Cross the Line in Closing Argument: An Examination of Federal and State Cases, 28 Ohio N.U. L. Rev. 67 (2001-2002)(problem of violations results from lack of uniformity and clarity of ground rules as well as errors of counsel). In Cohen v. Lioce, 149 P.3d 916 (Nev. 2006) the Nevada Supreme Court both provided significant guidance …

Let The Damages Fit The Wrong: An Immodest Proposal For Reforming Personal Injury Damages, Elaine W. Shoben

Scholarly Works

The modern legislative approach to tort reform has been a piecemeal process of altering single rules rather than reconsidering the fundamental principle of compensatory damages--the goal of making victims whole. When some aspect of damage doctrine has become disfavored, such as joint and several liability, legislatures and sometimes courts have made a change in that one rule. Lawmakers have focused little on the overall remedial scheme in tort and even less on the basic premise of compensatory damages and whether it is still justifiable.

Rather than comment on the wisdom of piecemeal reform, this article questions the premise of compensatory …