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Full-Text Articles in Law
Whose Regulatory Interests? Outsourcing The Treaty Function, Stephen B. Burbank
Whose Regulatory Interests? Outsourcing The Treaty Function, Stephen B. Burbank
All Faculty Scholarship
In this article I describe the status quo in the area of foreign judgment recognition, with attention to the tension between domestic interests and international cooperation. Precisely because the future of the status quo is in doubt, I then consider current proposals for change, particularly the effort to implement the Hague Choice of Court Convention in the United States. Prominent among the normative questions raised by my account is whose interests, in addition to the litigants’ interests, are at stake – those of the United States, those of the several states, or those of interest groups waving a federal or …
Civility And Collegiality—Unreasonable Judicial Expectations For Lawyers As Officers Of The Court?, Lonnie T. Brown
Civility And Collegiality—Unreasonable Judicial Expectations For Lawyers As Officers Of The Court?, Lonnie T. Brown
Scholarly Works
It is a well-settled and often-recited fact that lawyers are “officers of the court.” That title, however, is notoriously hortatory and devoid of meaning. Nevertheless, the Eleventh Circuit recently took the somewhat unprecedented step of utilizing the officer-of-the-court label to, in effect, sanction an attorney for the purportedly uncivil act of failing to provide defendant attorneys with pre-suit notice. While the author applauds the court’s desire to place greater emphasis on lawyer-to-lawyer collegiality as a component of officer-of-the-court status, the uncertainty the decision creates in terms of a lawyer’s role will potentially force litigators to compromise important client-centered duties. This …
Professionalism And Advocacy At Trial – Real Jurors Speak In Detail About The Performance Of Their Advocates, Mitchell J. Frank, Osvaldo F. Morera
Professionalism And Advocacy At Trial – Real Jurors Speak In Detail About The Performance Of Their Advocates, Mitchell J. Frank, Osvaldo F. Morera
Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Book Review: 'E-Discovery In Canada' By Todd J. Burke, Kelly Friedman, Andrew J. Mccreary, James Morton, Susan Nickle, Vincenzo Rondinelli, Glenn Smith, James Swanson & Susan Wortzman, Robert Currie
Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press
It is not hyperbolic to say that the proliferation of electronically stored information (ESI) is probably the most prominent change-harbinger and potential havoc-wreaker in civil litigation today — second only, perhaps, to the spiralling costs of litigation itself. Indeed, the practical and legal difficulties associated with the storage, gathering, preservation, disclosure and evidentiary use of ESI have the potential to act as a Trojan Horse, causing what would previously have been ordinary cases to implode under their weight. Increasing recognition of this is evident; electronic discovery (e-discovery) cases have begun to emerge in the reports, a successful co-operative effort by …
Secret Class Action Settlements, Rhonda Wasserman
Secret Class Action Settlements, Rhonda Wasserman
Articles
This Article analyzes the phenomenon of secret class action settlements. To illustrate the practice, Part I undertakes a case study of a class action lawsuit that recently settled under seal. Part II seeks to ascertain the scope of the practice. Part II.A examines newspaper accounts describing class action settlements from around the country. Part II.B focuses on a single federal judicial district – the Western District of Pennsylvania – and seeks to ascertain the percentage of suits filed as class actions that were settled under seal. Having gained some understanding of the scope of the practice, the Article then seeks …
Locking The Doors To Discovery? Assessing The Effects Of Twombly And Iqbal On Access To Discovery, Jonah B. Gelbach
Locking The Doors To Discovery? Assessing The Effects Of Twombly And Iqbal On Access To Discovery, Jonah B. Gelbach
All Faculty Scholarship
Many observers believe the Supreme Court’s Twombly and Iqbal opinions have curtailed access to civil justice. But previous empirical studies looking only at Rule 12(b)(6) grant rates have failed to capture the full effect of these cases because they have not accounted for party selection—changes in party behavior that can be expected following changes in pleading standards. In this Note, I show how party selection can be expected to undermine the empirical usefulness of simple grant-rate comparisons. I then use a conceptual model of party behavior that allows me to derive an adjusted measure of Twombly/Iqbal’s impact and show …
A Tea Party At The Hague?, Stephen B. Burbank
A Tea Party At The Hague?, Stephen B. Burbank
All Faculty Scholarship
In this article, I consider the prospects for and impediments to judicial cooperation with the United States. I do so by describing a personal journey that began more than twenty years ago when I first taught and wrote about international civil litigation. An important part of my journey has involved studying the role that the United States has played, and can usefully play, in fostering judicial cooperation, including through judgment recognition and enforcement. The journey continues but, today, finds me a weary traveler, more worried than ever about the politics and practice of international procedural lawmaking in the United States. …