Law Commons^™

Marbury Moments, Steven Arrigg Koh

Faculty Scholarship

Every court has its Marbury moment. To support this argument, this Article reviews seminal cases from three types of courts: U.S. federal, regional, and international. This Article concludes that Marbury moments provide novel insights about both Marbury v. Madison itself and the nature of domestic and international courts.

Litigation Isolationism, Pamela K. Bookman

Faculty Scholarship

Over the past two decades, U.S. courts have pursued a studied avoidance of transnational litigation. The resulting litigation isolationism appears to be driven by courts’ desire to promote separation of powers, international comity, and the interests of defendants. This Article demonstrates, however, that this new kind of “avoidance” in fact frequently undermines not only these values but also other significant U.S. interests by continuing to interfere with foreign relations and driving plaintiffs to sue in foreign courts.

This Article offers four contributions: First, it focuses the conversation about transnational litigation on those doctrines designed to avoid it—that is, doctrines that …

Supremes, Jennifer L. Behrens

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Leniency In Chinese Criminal Law? Everyday Justice In Henan, Benjamin L. Liebman

Faculty Scholarship

This Article examines one year of publicly available criminal judgments from a basic-level rural county court and an intermediate court in Henan Province in order to better understand trends in routine criminal adjudication in China. I present an account of ordinary criminal justice in China that is both familiar and striking: a system that treats serious crimes, in particular those affecting State interests, harshly, while at the same time acting leniently in routine cases. Most significantly, examination of more than five hundred court decisions shows the vital role that settlement plays in criminal cases in China today. Defendants who agree …

Patent Litigation Reform: The Courts, Congress, And The Federal Rules Of Civil Procedure, Paul Gugliuzza

Faculty Scholarship

Barely three years after passing the America Invents Act, Congress is again considering patent reform legislation. At least fourteen patent reform bills were introduced in the recently concluded 113th Congress. Several of those bills focused specifically on patent litigation, proposing, among other things, to impose heightened pleading requirements on plaintiffs, to limit discovery, and to create a presumption that the losing party should pay the winner’s attorneys’ fees. None of the proposals became law, but one of the bills (the Innovation Act) passed the House of Representatives. In addition, scholars continue to call for reform, and Republican members of Congress …