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Thoughtful Practitioners And An Engaged Legal Community: The Impact Of The Teaching Of Procedure On The Legal Profession And On Civil Justice Reform, Janet Walker, Andrew Higgins, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., Carla Crifò Oct 2013

Thoughtful Practitioners And An Engaged Legal Community: The Impact Of The Teaching Of Procedure On The Legal Profession And On Civil Justice Reform, Janet Walker, Andrew Higgins, Thomas D. Rowe Jr., Carla Crifò

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

What difference does the teaching of civil procedure as an academic subject make to the practice of law, to the professional community in which lawyers practice, and to civil justice reform? In this article, proceduralists from Canada, England and Wales, the United States and Australia analyze the broader implications of teaching civil procedure as an integral feature of an academic legal education rather than as a part of vocational training. They consider ways in which the approach taken to the teaching of procedure in their legal system has influenced the evolution of the profession during a decade of increased public …


To Skin A Cat: Qui Tam Actions As A State Legislative Response To Concepcion, Janet Cooper Alexander Jun 2013

To Skin A Cat: Qui Tam Actions As A State Legislative Response To Concepcion, Janet Cooper Alexander

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

The Supreme Court's decision in Concepcion is widely regarded as heralding the demise of small-claims class actions whenever contracts of adhesion are involved in the transaction-which means for virtually all consumer and employment claims. Amending the Federal Arbitration Act to overturn Concepcion would be a relatively simple exercise in legislative drafting, but in the current political climate such efforts are unlikely to succeed. Thus far, proposed federal corrective legislation has failed to pass, and federal agency regulation of class waivers has been lacking. State legislatures might have the political ability to pass corrective legislation, but virtually all state limitations on …


Concepcion's Pro-Defendant Biasing Of The Arbitration Process: The Class Counsel Solution, David Korn, David Rosenberg Jun 2013

Concepcion's Pro-Defendant Biasing Of The Arbitration Process: The Class Counsel Solution, David Korn, David Rosenberg

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

By mandating that numerous plaintiffs litigate their common question claims separately in individual arbitrations rather than jointly in class action arbitrations, the Supreme Court in AT&T Mobility LLC v. Concepcion entrenched a potent structural and systemic bias in favor of defendants. The bias arises from the parties' divergent stakes in the outcome of the common question litigation in individual arbitrations: each plaintiff will only invest to maximize the value of his or her own claim, but the defendant has an incentive to protect its entire exposure and thus will have a classwide incentive to invest more in contesting common questions. …


Joinder Under The Aia: Shifting Non-Practicing Entity Patent Assertions Away From Small Businesses, Xun Liu Jan 2013

Joinder Under The Aia: Shifting Non-Practicing Entity Patent Assertions Away From Small Businesses, Xun Liu

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

When the America Invents Act ("AIA ") was signed in September 2011, many feared the law might benefit larger corporations at the expense of small businesses. This Note examines how one portion of the AIA, governing joinder in patent cases, might actually benefit small businesses by reducing patent assertions from non-practicing entities ("NPEs"). NPE assertions disproportionately affect small businesses, both because NPEs target small businesses more frequently and because patent assertions have a greater impact on individual companies. Prior to the AIA, joining multiple defendants in a single lawsuit offered important advantages for patent holders and allowed NPEs to achieve …


Protecting The Right Of Citizens To Aggregate Small Claims Against Businesses, Paul D. Carrington Jan 2013

Protecting The Right Of Citizens To Aggregate Small Claims Against Businesses, Paul D. Carrington

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Two years ago I ranted against the Supreme Court's subversion of the Rules Enabling Act and its opposition to the benign aims of the twentieth-century progressive law reformers expressed summarily in Rule 1 of our Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. I observed then that the majority of the Justices of the Supreme Court appeared to have joined the Chamber of Commerce, aligning themselves also with Vice President Dan Quayle's 1989 Council on Competitiveness that denounced effective civil procedure as an enemy of economic development. I was then commenting adversely on what the Court had done to transform Rule 8. I …


Iron Man Of The Rules, Patrick E. Higginbotham Jan 2013

Iron Man Of The Rules, Patrick E. Higginbotham

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

To grasp Professor Cooper's contribution to rulemaking, it is helpful to review issues that the Advisory Committee confronted during his tenure. I will focus on the first four of his twenty years of service.


Ed Cooper, Rule 56, And Charles E. Clark's Fountain Of Youth, Steven S. Gensler Jan 2013

Ed Cooper, Rule 56, And Charles E. Clark's Fountain Of Youth, Steven S. Gensler

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Nobody had a greater impact on the formulation of the original Civil Rules than Clark. His role as both the principal architect2 and the principal draftsman3 of the Civil Rules is well known. As Professor Wright once put it, although the Civil Rules were a joint effort, "the end product bears the unmistakable Clark stamp."4 But Clark started shaping the Civil Rules even before drafting began.5 Initially, Chief Justice Hughes thought the civil rules project should be limited to creating rules for actions at law (leaving in place-and separate-the existing equity rules).6 A passionate advocate for merging law and equity …


Professor Edward Cooper: The Quintessential Reporter, Mary Kay Kane Jan 2013

Professor Edward Cooper: The Quintessential Reporter, Mary Kay Kane

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Ed Cooper's twenty-year service as the Chief Reporter for the Civil Rules Advisory Committee deserves special recognition and tribute not only because of its longevity-which is remarkable in and of itself-but more particularly, because of the scope and depth of the rule changes he has helped to shepherd into law.


The Twelve-Person Federal Civil Jury In Exile, Thomas D. Rowe Jr. Jan 2013

The Twelve-Person Federal Civil Jury In Exile, Thomas D. Rowe Jr.

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

In the mid-1990s, the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules, with Fifth Circuit Judge Patrick Higginbotham as Chair and our honoree, Professor Ed Cooper, in the early years of his long service as Reporter, unanimously (coincidentally, by a 12-0 vote) proposed an amendment to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 48 that would have required the seating of twelve-member juries in federal civil trials. The requirement of a unanimous verdict, unless waived by the parties, and the abolition of alternate jurors would have been unaffected; attrition could reduce a jury's size below twelve members, with a floor of six unless the parties …


Some Very Personal Reflections On The Rules, Rulemaking, And Reporters, Arthur R. Miller Jan 2013

Some Very Personal Reflections On The Rules, Rulemaking, And Reporters, Arthur R. Miller

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

My entry into the world of federal rulemaking was one of those unpredictable but welcome fortuities of life. In early 1961, more than a half century ago, I was a happy and progressing associate in a prominent medium-sized, Wall Street, New York City law firm. Columbia Law School approached me to be the Associate Director of its newly formed Project on International Procedure. They dangled several attractive incentives: I could try my hand at teaching some civil procedure; hobnob with the giants of the Columbia faculty, like Herb Wechsler, Walter Gellhorn, Maury Rosenberg, and Jack Weinstein; and take my first …


Is Now The Time For Simplified Rules Of Civil Procedure, Paul V. Niemeyer Jan 2013

Is Now The Time For Simplified Rules Of Civil Procedure, Paul V. Niemeyer

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Unfortunately, any objective evaluation of current federal civil process will inevitably lead to the conclusion that the process is functioning inadequately in its purpose of discharging justice speedily and inexpensively. One need only ask any trial lawyer whether he can try a medium-sized commercial dispute to judgment in a federal court in less than three years and at a cost of less than six figures. Is the iconic appellation of "making a federal case out of a dispute" not the ultimate condemnation of current judicial process in federal courts? Can we understand the private bar's flight from federal courts to …


Protecting The Right Of Citizens To Aggregate Small Claims Against Businesses, Paul D. Carrington Jan 2013

Protecting The Right Of Citizens To Aggregate Small Claims Against Businesses, Paul D. Carrington

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.


They Were Meant For Each Other: Professor Edward Cooper And The Rules Enabling Act, Mark R. Kravitz, David F. Levi, Lee H. Rosenthal, Anthony J. Scirica Jan 2013

They Were Meant For Each Other: Professor Edward Cooper And The Rules Enabling Act, Mark R. Kravitz, David F. Levi, Lee H. Rosenthal, Anthony J. Scirica

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

This introduction to the essays in this Symposium illuminates Professor Ed Cooper's years as Reporter to the Civil Rules Committee by first briefly describing those who preceded him in the position and his own background. We then describe some of Ed Cooper's many contributions to the Civil Rules Committee, the Federal Rules, rulemaking, and civil procedure by examining the present state of the Rules Committees' work under the Rules Enabling Act. We conclude that after almost eighty years of experience under that Act, it is working well in large part because of the sound leadership provided by Ed Cooper over …


Edward Cooper As Curator Of The Civil Rules, Goeffrey C. Hazard Jr. Jan 2013

Edward Cooper As Curator Of The Civil Rules, Goeffrey C. Hazard Jr.

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Ed Cooper has had a salient role in maintaining the Rules Committee process as a highly competent and stable element of lawmaking in this country. He is a consummate master of civil procedure and acutely understands the constitutional and political milieu in which the Rules process functions. Along with other similarly competent and observant Reporters, including the senior serving Reporter, Dan Coquillette, he has helped keep the Rules process and product as evenhanded as can be expected in our complicated legal system.