Law Commons^™

The Attorney As Advocate And Witness: Does The Prohibition Of An Attorney Acting As Advocate And Witness At A Judicial Trial Also Apply In Administrative Adjudications, Arnold Rochvarg

All Faculty Scholarship

In every state, the professional rules of conduct contain a prohibition on an attorney acting as both an advocate for their client and a witness in the same trial. The "lawyer as witness" rule has, however, been inconsistently applied in administrative adjudications. This article analyzes the split of authority in the use of this rule and proposes a solution as how the issue should be resolved.

Ample support for applying the lawyer as witness rule to administrative adjudications may be found in administrative decisions, judicial opinions and state bar association ethics committee opinions. There is, however, conflicting authority that rejects …

Trial By Jury Involving Persons Accused Of Terrorism Or Supporting Terrorism, Neil Vidmar

Faculty Scholarship

This chapter explores issues in jury trials involving persons accused of committing acts of international terrorism or financially or otherwise supporting those who do or may commit such acts. The jury is a unique institution that draws upon laypersons to decide whether a person charged with a crime is guilty or innocent. Although the jury is instructed and guided by a trial judge and procedural rules shape what the jury is allowed to hear, ultimately the laypersons deliberate alone and render their verdict. A basic principle of the jury system is that at the start of trial the jurors should …

What We Know, And What We Should Know About American Trial Trends, Margo Schlanger

Articles

More than a few people noticed that the American court system was seeing ever fewer trials before Marc Galanter named the phenomenon.' But until Galanter mobilized lawyers2 and scholars to look systematically at the issue, inquiry was both piecemeal and sparse. Over the past three years, in contrast, Galanter's research 3 and his idea entrepreneurship, crystallized in the "Vanishing Trial" label, has spawned if not a huge literature at least a substantial one. We have now gotten the benefit of sustained scholarly inquiry by researchers of many stripes. Their work has been largely, though not entirely, empirical, and so we …

Using Court Records For Research, Teaching, And Policymaking: The Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, Margo Schlanger, Denise Lieberman

Articles

The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is, wisely, planning the future of its enormous collection of relatively recent court records. The pertinent regulation, a “records disposition schedule” first issued in 1995 by the Judicial Conference of the United States in consultation with NARA, commits the Archives to keeping, permanently, all case files dated 1969 or earlier; all case files dated 1970 or later in which a trial was held, and “any civil case file which NARA has determined in consultation with court officials to have historical value.” Other files may be destroyed 20 years after they enter the federal …