Litigation Commons^™

What Is A Reasonable Attorney Fee? An Empirical Study Of Class Action Settlements, Theodore Eisenberg, Geoffrey P. Miller

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Determining an appropriate fee is a difficult task facing trial court judges in class action litigation. But courts rarely rely on empirical research to assess a fee’s reasonableness, due, at least in part, to the relative paucity of available information. Existing empirical studies of attorney fees in class action cases are limited in scope, and generally do not control for important variables. To help fill this gap, we analyzed data from all state and federal class actions with reported fee decisions from 1993 to 2002 in which the fee and class recovery could be determined with reasonable confidence.

We find …

Agenda: Water Negotiation Workshop, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation

Water Negotiation Workshop (June 4-5)

"Sponsored by: The Natural Resources law Center of the University of Colorado Law School; Funding provided by: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation."

"Facilitators: Lucy Moore and Steve Snyder."

"June 4 and 5, 2003, Community House, Chautauqua Park, Boulder, Colorado."

Contents:

Agenda -- Roster of workshop participants -- Biographies of workshop participants -- Maps of Klamath basin -- Key water-related events in the upper Klamath basin -- Federal-state decisionmaking on water : applying lessons learned / David J. Hayes -- Turbulence in the Klamath River basin / Sharon Levy

Maps Of The Klamath Basin And Key Water-Related Events In The Upper Klamath Basin, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center

Water Negotiation Workshop (June 4-5)

5 pages.

Contents:

Maps of Klamath Basin -- Key water-related events in the Upper Klamath Basin

Excerpted from: Ron Hathaway & Teresa Welch, Water Allocation in the Klamath Reclamation Project, 2001: An Assessment of Natural Resource, Economic, Social, and Institutional Issues with a Focus on the Upper Klamath Basin 31-34, 43 (Oregon State University, University of California, reprinted May 2003). Full report available in Klamath Waters Digital Library at http://digitallib.oit.edu/cdm/ref/collection/kwl/id/9442.

The Government As Litigant: Further Tests Of The Case Selection Model, Theodore Eisenberg, Henry Farber

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

We develop a model of the plaintiff's decision to file a lawsuit that has implications for how differences between the federal government and private litigants translate into differences in trial rates and plaintiff win rates at trial. Our case selection model generates a set of predictions for relative trial rates and plaintiff win rates, depending on the type of case and whether the government is defendant or plaintiff. To test the model, we use data on about 474,000 cases filed in federal district court between 1979 and 1994 in the areas of personal injury and job discrimination, in which the …

How Employment-Discrimination Plaintiffs Fare In The Federal Courts Of Appeals, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Employment-discrimination plaintiffs swim against the tide. Compared to the typical plaintiff, they win a lower proportion of cases during pretrial and after trial. Then, many of their successful cases are appealed. On appeal, they have a harder time in upholding their successes, as well in reversing adverse outcome.

This tough story does not describe some tiny corner of the litigation world. Employment-discrimination cases constitute an increasing fraction of the federal civil docket, now reigning as the largest single category of cases at nearly 10 percent.

In this article, we use official government data to describe the appellate phase of this …