Law Commons^™

Assessing The New Judicial Minimalism, Christopher J. Peters

All Faculty Scholarship

In this article, which has been published in slightly revised form at 100 Colum. L. Rev. 1454 (2000), I critique some recently prominent arguments for "judicial minimalism" in constitutional decisionmaking. Current minimalist arguments, I contend, are primarily "policentric," that is, focused on the role the judiciary can play in bolstering the accountability and deliberativeness of the political branches. Drawing in part on a previous article, I offer an alternative approach to minimalism that is "juricentric" - focused on the inherent democratic legitimacy of the adjudicative process and the unique competence of that process to produce decisions about individual rights. I …

The 1% Solution: American Judges Must Enter The Internet Age (With Ronald W. Staudt), Henry H. Perritt Jr.

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The 1% Solution: American Judges Must Enter The Internet Age (With Henry H. Perritt, Jr.), Ronald W. Staudt

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Racial Diversity On The Bench: Beyond Role Models And Public Confidence, Sherrilyn A. Ifill

Faculty Scholarship

The lack of racial diversity on our nation’s courts threatens both the quality and legitimacy of judicial decision-making. Traditional arguments emphasizing the “role model” value of black judges and the need for black judges to help promote “public confidence” in the justice system have turned our attention away from the most important justification for judicial diversity: Diversity on the bench can enrich judicial decision-making by including a variety of voices and perspectives in the deliberative process. In this Article, the Author advocates racial diversity among judges as a critical means of achieving cultural pluralism in judicial decision-making.

Judicial diversity advocates …

Judicial Lobbying At The Wto: The Debate Over The Use Of Amicus Curiae Briefs And The U.S. Experience, Padideh Ala'i

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The continuing debate over the use of amicus curiae briefs at the World Trade Organization (“WTO”) raises interesting questions about the influence of the U.S. legal system on the WTO dispute settlement process. Specifically, it brings to the surface differences between legal cultures and the fact that the U.S. legal culture with its emphasis on procedure is not readily transferable to the WTO. Comparing the controversy regarding the use of amicus curiae briefs before WTO Panels and the Appellate Body with the history and evolution of the institution of amicus curiae before the U.S. Supreme Court may help explain the …

Why Lawyers Have Often Worn Strange Clothes, Claimed To Work For Free--And Been Hated, Hugh D. Spitzer

Articles

Why have lawyers and judges always adorned themselves in ancient regalia? Obviously, they must symbolically transform themselves from private individuals into "law speakers" for the community. They become tools of a longstanding legal system, and special clothes offer clues to others (and reminders to themselves) that they have special responsibilities, both to their clients and to the community at large. The "retro" clothes that lawyers and judges wear also remind everyone that law is old that it isn't meant to change rapidly, and that it offers stability and predictability in a changing world.

The Role Of The Law Review In The Tradition Of Judicial Scholarship, Kenneth F. Ripple

Journal Articles

This article explores one of the most important sources of judicial education, the law review. Part I first examines, by way of introduction, why continued intellectual growth is so important to the American jurist of today. It then sets forth the growth of the law review as an institution within the legal profession. Part II examines the various roles that law reviews play traditionally in the intellectual life of a judge and suggests, with respect to each, certain improvements in the judge-law review relationship designed both to enhance the effectiveness of the law review as an intellectual companion and to …

Corrective Justice And The Revival Of Judicial Virtue, Mark C. Modak-Truran

Journal Articles

Judges must be wise. Sound judicial reasoning requires moral virtue. These sentiments about judging have been lost. They apparently belong to a bygone era. While many advocate self-restraint or prudence as judicial virtues, moral virtue has been conspicuously absent from the list. Except for avoiding obvious vices such as bribery, favoritism, prejudice, sloth, and arbitrariness, conventional wisdom maintains that being a good judge does not require being a good person. Even theorists sympathetic to a relationship between law and morality balk at making moral virtue a prerequisite of judicial decision making. Rather, many contend that judicial decision making is a …

Municipal Ethics Remain A Hot Topic In Litigation: A 1999 Survey Of Issues In Ethics For Municipal Lawyers, Patricia E. Salkin

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

En Banc Revisited, Michael B. Abramowicz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Legal commentators have proposed a variety of solutions to the perceived problems of the U.S. courts of appeals, from splitting large circuits to assuring partisan balance in panel decisions. They have always assumed, however, that judges a particular appellate court should have sole responsibility for creating the law of that circuit, except when caseload pressures make it necessary to borrow visiting judges. In this Essay, Professor Abramowicz proposes using visiting judges in a more important role: en banc decision-making. Under this proposal, en banc decisions for one circuit would be made entirely by courts of appeals judges randomly selected from …

The Chicago Conspiracy Trial: Character And Judicial Discretion, Pnina Lahav

Faculty Scholarship

On October 29, 1969, sometime after two o'clock in the afternoon, following yet another heated exchange with defendant Bobby Seale in a courtroom full of spectators, reporters, and armed guards, Judge Julius Jennings Hoffman turned to a marshal and ordered: "Take that defendant into the room in there and deal with him as he should be dealt with in this circumstance."' Judge Hoffman described the aftermath:

In an attempt to maintain order in the courtroom, the Court thereupon ordered the defendant Seale removed from the courtroom at which time he was forcibly restrained by binding and gagging. The defendant Seale …

En Banc Revisited, Michael B. Abramowicz

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Legal commentators have proposed a variety of solutions to the perceived problems of the U.S. courts of appeals, from splitting large circuits to assuring partisan balance in panel decisions. They have always assumed, however, that judges a particular appellate court should have sole responsibility for creating the law of that circuit, except when caseload pressures make it necessary to borrow visiting judges. In this Essay, Professor Abramowicz proposes using visiting judges in a more important role: en banc decision-making. Under this proposal, en banc decisions for one circuit would be made entirely by courts of appeals judges randomly selected from …

Imagining Justice, Robin West

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

As we approach the new century and the new millennium, those of us who are legal professionals in liberal capitalist democracies need to drastically improve our practices of law if we are to bring those practices in line with our professed ideals. The commodification and marketing of legal services, for example, combined with a nearly blind commitment to overly combative advocacy, puts legal assistance beyond the means of large segments of the public, severely undercutting our commitment to equality before the law. A different and perhaps harder question, however, is whether the ideals against which we judge our practices are …

Judicial Auditing, Matthew L. Spitzer, Eric L. Talley

Faculty Scholarship

This paper presents a simple framework for analyzing a hierarchical system of judicial auditing. We concentrate on (what we perceive to be) the two principal reasons that courts and/or legislatures tend to scrutinize the decisions of lower echelon actors: imprecision and ideological bias. In comparing these two reasons, we illustrate how each may yield systematically distinct auditing and reversal behaviors. While auditing for imprecision tends to bring about evenhanded review/reversal, auditing for political bias tends to be contingent on the first mover's chosen action. Examples of these tendencies can be found in a number of legal applications, including administrative law, …