Law Commons^™

Customized Litigation: The Case For Making Civil Procedure Negotiable, Michael Moffitt

ExpressO

This article calls for a complete re-conceptualization of the procedural rules governing modern litigation. Specifically, it suggests that litigants ought to be given the opportunity to customize their litigation experience—that procedural rules should be treated as default rules from which parties can mutually negotiate deviations. Although they are not typically labeled as such, modest examples of customization already occur both within the rules of civil procedure and extra-judicially. This article argues that much greater tailoring is possible, and it suggests three criteria for assessing how much deviation from the current baseline is tolerable. This article argues that a judicial system …

Precedent And Procedural Due Process: Policymaking In The Federal Courts, Sarah A. Maguire

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

“It’S The [Tort System], Stupid:” Consumer Deductibles; How To More Equitably Distribute The Risks Of Medical Malpractice And Adequately Compensate Victims Without Statutory Damage Caps., Bradford Luke Ledbetter

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Toward A Federal Common Law Of Bankruptcy: Judicial Lawmaking In A Statutory Regime, Adam J. Levitin

ExpressO

Bankruptcy is a statutory system, yet it is replete with practices for which there is no direct authorization in the Bankruptcy Code. This article argues that the authorization for judicial creation of bankruptcy law beyond the provisions of the Code has been misidentified as the equity powers of bankruptcy courts. This misidentification has led courts to place inappropriate statutory and historical limitations on non-Code practices because of discomfort with unguided equitable discretion.

Both the statutory and historic limitations are problematic. The statutory authorization for the bankruptcy courts’ equitable powers appears to have been repealed by what one judge has called …

Cambodia At A Crossroads: How Repealing Untac Article 63, Cambodia's Current Defamation Law, Will Lead To A More Vigorous Democracy, Alicia A. Adornato

ExpressO

Cambodia’s current criminal defamation law is an impermissible intrusion of Cambodians’ constitutionally guaranteed right to freedom of expression. The law itself is a remnant of the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia. Moreover it is now being used as a tool to silence the government’s political opposition through a weak judiciary system, leaving in its wake a democracy afraid to exercise its constitutionally guaranteed rights. This law is an unconstitutional violation for several reasons: first, it violates the right to freedom of expression which is guaranteed in Cambodia’s Constitution. Secondly, it is incompatible with Cambodia’s human rights obligations under the …

Bringing Jury Instructions Into The Twenty-First Century, Nancy S. Marder

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Cyberjuries: A New Role As Online Mock Juries, Nancy S. Marder

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Bringing Jury Instructions Into The Twenty-First Century, Nancy S. Marder

Nancy S. Marder

No abstract provided.

Cyberjuries: A New Role As Online Mock Juries, Nancy S. Marder

Nancy S. Marder

No abstract provided.

Justice Story Cuts The Gordian Knot Of Hung Jury Instructions, George C. Thomas Iii, Mark Greenbaum

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

Constitutional law grows more complex over time. The complexity is due, in large part, to the rule of stare decisis. When faced with precedents that it does not wish to follow, the Court usually distinguishes the case before it. Thus, the constitutional landscape is littered with cases that do not fit well together. Navigating past these shoals is often difficult for courts following the Supreme Court’s lead. One example is the law governing instructions that a trial judge can give a deadlocked jury in a criminal case. The right to a jury trial entails the right to have the jury …

For Such A Time As This, John W. Reed

Other Publications

This essay is based on a talk at the annual meeting of the International Society of Barristers at Scottsdale, Arizona on March 17, 2006.

Judicial Accountability In A Time Of Legal Realism, William P. Marshall

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Train Our Jurors, Jonathan Koehler

Faculty Working Papers

Lay jurors are often legally and logically unprepared for trial. In response, it is recommended that jurors receive training in how to make better legal decisions. This chapter suggests that jurors should receive comprehensive training in critical legal doctrines and in how to reason with legal evidence. Jurors who cannot be trained to achieve minimal levels of competence (in the law or in basic reasoning) should be excused from jury service. Suggestions are given as to how policy makers and researchers who are interested in jury reform may wish to proceed.

Mental Health Courts And Title Ii Of The Ada: Accessibility To State Court Systems For Individuals With Mental Disabilities And The Need For Diversion, Ronda Cress, J. Neil Grindstaff, S. Elizabeth Malloy

Saint Louis University Public Law Review

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Vanishing Trial Symposium, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

This symposium shows that "vanishing trial" phenomena touch an extremely broad range of issues including transformations of society, courts, dispute resolution procedures, and even the nature of knowledge. These phenomena relate to decisions by litigants in particular cases, court systems, national policy, and international relations. This subject is too large and complex for any symposium to analyze fully, especially at this early stage of analysis. This symposium makes an important contribution to this study, with theories and evidence about the existence, nature, and extent of reductions in trials and similar proceedings. It elaborates a range of theories about possible causes …

International Law Weekend Panel On Litigating The Holocaust In U.S. Courts, Monica Dugot Esq.

ILSA Journal of International & Comparative Law

I joined Christie's a little over a year ago as Director of Restitution, coordinating Christie's restitution issues globally.

Choosing A Chief Justice: Presidential Prerogative Or A Job For The Court?, Todd E. Pettys

Todd E. Pettys

After identifying the original rationales for our longstanding tradition of permitting the President and Senate to decide which of the Court’s nine members will serve as Chief Justice, I argue that those rationales are anachronistic, that the tradition creates unnecessary conflicts of interest and separation-of-powers concerns, and that the Court’s members should be permitted to decide for themselves which of them will serve as Chief Justice.

Civil Rights Injunctions Over Time: A Case Study Of Jail And Prison Court Orders, Margo Schlanger

Margo Schlanger

No abstract provided.

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

Margo Schlanger

No abstract provided.

Non-Governmental Organizations And The International Criminal Court: Changing Landscapes Of International Law, Zoe Pearson

Cornell International Law Journal

An exploration of claims that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) influence the formation of international law focuses on NGO participation in the multilateral negotiations to form the International Criminal Court. It is shown that, although NGO's can contribute to international lawmaking processes, their participation remains ad hoc, contingent, & characterized by conflicting viewpoints. However, existing international lawmaking is attempting to accommodate the diversity of global civil society actors even though deeply entrenched traditional constructions of international law tend to limit their involvement. Adapted from the source document.

Living On The Past: The Role Of Truth Commissions In Post-Conflict Societies And The Case Study Of Northern Ireland, Christopher K. Connolly

Cornell International Law Journal

Examines the possibility of applying the truth commission model in Northern Ireland where the past plays a significant role in shaping daily lives & worldviews. A review of the theory & practice of truth commissions is followed by a description of Northern Ireland's long & complex conflicts that point to the need for some form of truth-seeking. Attention is given to the difficulties such a process would face. Three recent truth-seeking initiatives are critiqued: the Northern Ireland Victims' Commissioner; the Bloody Sunday Inquiry; & a series of decisions by the European Court of Human Rights. A framework is presented for …

Exploring The Myths About The Ninth Circuit, Stephen Wermiel

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Legal Approaches And The Contributions Of Case Law, Claudio Grossman

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Courts, Congress, And Public Policy, Part I: The Fda, The Courts, And The Regulation Of Tobacco, Jeffrey R. Lax, Mathew D. Mccubbins

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Caregivers In The Courtroom: The Growing Trend Of Family Responsibilities Discrimination, Joan C. Williams, Stephanie Bornstein

University of San Francisco Law Review

This Articles describes how attorneys bringing FRD claims face a threshold conceptual issue:How should plaintiffs frame FRD cases under existing discrimination law when neither "mother" nor "parent" is a protected classification? The solve this threshold issue, this Article suggests that FRD cases need not be shoehorned into protections for pregnancy nor require individual accommodations to be litigable. FRD cases can be litigated as straightforward gender discrimination cases under Title VII or under a variety of existing laws.

Skepticism And Expertise: The Supreme Court And The Eeoc, Melissa Hart

Publications

The Supreme Court regularly denies deference to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's interpretations of the federal antidiscrimination laws which that agency is charged with enforcing and interpreting. The Court's lack of deference for EEOC interpretation is in part a function of the analytical framework that the Court has created for assessing the deference due to different types of administrative interpretation. But this essay argues that the Court's lack of deference cannot be entirely explained with reference to these neutral analytical criteria. The Court's attitude toward the EEOC may also be explained as a consequence both of judicial reluctance to view …

Immunity Or Impunity The Potential Effect Of Prosecutions Of State Officials For Core International Crimes In States Like The United States That Are Not Parties To The Statute Of The International, Mark A. Summers

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Reshaping Federal Jurisdiction: Congress's Latest Challenge To Judicial Review, Helen Norton

Publications

This Article examines growing congressional interest in a specific legislative check on judicial power: controlling the types of cases judges are empowered to decide by expanding and/or contracting federal subject matter jurisdiction. Congress has recently sought to shape judicial power through a range of proposals that variously enlarge and compress federal subject matter jurisdiction. In 2004, for example, the House of Representatives voted to strip federal courts of jurisdiction over constitutional challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act and the Pledge of the Allegiance. Just a few months later, the new 109th Congress undertook a groundbreaking expansion of federal subject …

Convicting The Innocent: Aberration Or Systemic Problem?, Rodney J. Uphoff

Faculty Publications

In practice, the right to adequate defense counsel in the United States is disturbingly unequal. Only some American criminal defendants actually receive the effective assistance of counsel. Although some indigent defendants are afforded zealous, effective representation, many indigent defendants and almost all of the working poor are not. The quality of representation a defendant receives generally is a product of fortuity, of economic status, and of the jurisdiction in which he or she is charged. For many defendants, the assistance of counsel means little more than counsel's help in facilitating a guilty plea. With luck, money, and location primarily determining …

Conditions For Judicial Independence, Mathew D. Mccubbins, Roger Noll, Barry R. Weingast

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.