Law Commons^™

Access To Counsel In Civil Cases, Human Rights Institute

Human Rights Institute

Legal representation is fundamental to safeguarding access to the legal system. Yet, in the United States, millions of people who are poor or low-income are unable to obtain legal representation when facing a crisis such as eviction, foreclosure, domestic violence, workplace discrimination, termination of subsistence income or medical assistance, loss of child custody, or deportation. Indeed, in the U.S., only a small fraction of the legal problems experienced by low-income people — fewer than one in five — is addressed with the assistance of legal representation.

Columbia Law School Human Rights Institute Joins Delegation At United Nations For Review Of U.S. Human Rights Record, Human Rights Institute

Human Rights Institute

New York, August 11, 2014 – This week, Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute (HRI) will travel to Geneva, Switzerland this week to participate in a significant review of the United States’ human rights record by the United Nations.

Access To Justice: Ensuring Meaningful Access To Counsel In Civil Cases, Human Rights Clinic

Human Rights Institute

In order to meet its human rights obligations, the federal government must work toward the establishment of the right to counsel for indigent litigants in civil cases, especially where basic human needs are at stake. Direct steps the federal government should take include: supporting research into the impact of providing counsel in civil cases; fully funding the Legal Services Corporation and lifting restrictions that prevent legal services lawyers from providing necessary services; intensifying the Acc,ess to Justice Initiative's activities with respect to civil legal services and providing it with the necessary leadership and resources; and filing supportive amicus briefs when …

Access To Justice: Ensuring Meaningful Access To Counsel In Civil Cases, Human Rights Clinic

Human Rights Institute

Legal representation is fundamental to safeguarding fair, equal, and meaningful ac- cess to the legal system. Yet, in the United States, millions of people who are poor or low-income are unable to obtain legal representation when facing a crisis such as eviction, foreclosure, domestic violence, workplace discrimination, termination of subsistence income or medical assistance, and loss of child custody. Indeed, only a small fraction of the legal problems experienced by low-income and poor people living in the United States – less than one in five – are addressed with the assistance of legal representation. A categorical right to counsel in …

Punitive Damages Vs. The Death Penalty: In Search Of A Unified Approach To Jury Discretion And Due Process Of Law, José F. Anderson

All Faculty Scholarship

The role of the jury in awarding monetary damages to plaintiffs in a wide range of civil cases has captured the attention of the media, contemporary non-fiction writers, and reform-minded politicians in recent years. Particular attention has been focused on huge jury awards, which has led many commentators to criticize the wisdom of permitting juries to move so much money from one place to another. Although the right to a jury trial, and with it the exercise of broad judicial discretion, is constitutionally based, many reform efforts have moved toward removing juries from cases both as to the subject matter …

Objecting To Court Ordered Mediation, Jane C. Murphy

All Faculty Scholarship

Maryland judges have wide discretion to refer parties to mediate a variety of civil matters. Title 17 of the Maryland Rules, enacted in 1998, governs mediation of civil cases in the circuit courts. These rules are supplemented by Maryland Rule 9-205, which addresses mediation of child custody and visitation disputes. Although these rules define mediation and address mediator qualifications in some detail, they say very little about either a party's right to object to mediation or the court's authority to compel participation in mediation.

Given that the mediation rules are relatively new and mediation orders would generally be considered interlocutory, …

Daubert Asks The Right Questions: Now Appellate Courts Should Help Find The Right Answers, Christopher B. Mueller

Publications

No abstract provided.

Trial By Jury Or Judge: Transcending Empiricism, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Pity the civil jury, seen by some as the sickest organ of a sick system. Yet the jury has always been controversial. One might suppose that, with so much at stake for so long, we would all know a lot about the ways juries differ from judges in their behavior. In fact, we know remarkably little. This Article provides the first large-scale comparison of plaintiff win rates and recoveries in civil cases tried before juries and judges. In two of the most controversial areas of modern tort law--product liability and medical malpractice--the win rates substantially differ from other cases' win …

The Conjurer's Circle--The Fifth Amendment Privilege In Civil Cases, Robert H. Heidt

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Instructing The Jury Upon Presumptions In Civil Cases: Comparing Federal Rule 301 With Uniform Rule 301, Christopher B. Mueller

Publications

No abstract provided.

Arizona's Inferior Courts, Harold H. Bruff

Publications

For many citizens Arizona's inferior courts provide their primary, perhaps only, contact with the state's justice system. This Article--based in large part upon a thorough empirical and personal study of these lower courts--discusses the role that the courts play, the procedures that they observe, the qualifications of the personnel they employ, and the sufficiency of the justice they render. These findings are then evaluated, and recommendations for change are made.

Witnesses: A Canonist's View, William Hamilton Bryson

Law Faculty Publications

The purpose of this essay is to examine and compare with our present practices a medieval text or summary of canonical procedure, the Summa de Ordine Iudiciario by Ricardus Anglicus-more narrowly, chapter XXX, which is concerned with witnesses. There are several reasons for examining the work of Ricardus Anglicus. This Englishman was a brilliant canonist in an age when the most ingenious and aggressive intellectuals were gravitating to the field of canon and civil law. Also he gives us a rather full summary of the subject.