Law Commons^™

Ghostwriting The Government, Bridget C.E. Dooling

Marquette Law Review

Ghostwriting is when a writer prepares materials to be issued under someone else’s name. The word describes a politician’s use of a speechwriter, a student’s purchase of a term paper, or a tongue-twisted admirer asking a poet to craft a love letter on his behalf. It also happens inside organizations every day: staff draft documents for others “up the chain” to sign. But when legislators rely on staff and lobbyists to draft bills, when an agency head relies on staff or contractors to write a rule, and when a judge relies on her clerk for a draft opinion, the benefits …

The Lone Dissent, Grant Christensen, Anne Mullins

Washington and Lee Law Review

What can be learned when a Supreme Court Justice decides to write a lone dissent? There exists a powerful set of incentives for Supreme Court opinions to achieve consensus. Although closely divided cases grab news headlines, unanimous opinions are actually the most commonly issued judicial alignment, and cases in which a single Justice dissents are the most unlikely. Despite voluminous academic discussion of judicial behavior, no legal scholarship has focused on the lone dissent. This Article is designed to insert consideration of lone dissenting opinions into the broader discussion of judicial behavior.

Looking at the set of Supreme Court opinions …

If I Had More Time, Would I Have Written A Shorter And Faster Decision? An Empirical Examination Of The Evolution Of Trial Court Decisions, Jon Khan

Dalhousie Law Journal

This article draws from my 2019 LLM thesis on Canadian judicial decisions, where I sought to understand two things: how current approaches to judicial decision-writing may impact access to justice and how might we make decisions a better source of data while also making them more timely, concise, accessible, and consistent. It presents the results and analysis of an original empirical study of the evolution of British Columbia trial decisions over 40 years (1980–2018). It argues that the current process for writing Canadian judicial decisions likely does not further the goals of access to justice and may even hinder them. …

The Rise Of Transnational Commercial Courts: The Astana International Financial Centre Court, Ilias Bantekas

Pace International Law Review

The proliferation of international commercial courts aims to boost income from legal services and serve as a catalyst for newly found rules of law and thus attract investor confidence. The latter is the underlying purpose for the creation of the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) and its Court. The Court’s legal framework is set out in the tradition of its competitors in the Gulf and similarly employs an impressive lineup of former senior judges from the United Kingdom. It is a unique experiment because it strives to create a balance between maintaining a judicial institution of the highest caliber while …

Practical Truth: The Value Of Apparent Honesty In Supreme Court Opinions, Timothy C. Macdonnell

Scholarly Articles

Judicial honesty or judicial candor is the subject of significant scholarly attention, but it is not the focus of this Essay. Rather, the author's focus is on the importance that appearing honest has on the persuasive force of an opinion and the dangers associated with failing to achieve that goal. This distinction is not intended to suggest Justices should seek apparent honesty while not being actually honest. Rather, this Essay emphasizes that actually honest opinions must also be apparently honest. Thus, judicial candor is necessary to apparent honesty, but it is not always sufficient on its own.

To support the …

Supreme Verbosity: The Roberts Court's Expanding Legacy, Mary Margaret Penrose

Faculty Scholarship

The link between courts and the public is the written word. With rare exceptions, it is through judicial opinions that courts communicate with litigants, lawyers, other courts, and the community. Whatever the court’s statutory and constitutional status, the written word, in the end, is the source and the measure of the court’s authority.

It is therefore not enough that a decision be correct—it must also be fair and reasonable and readily understood. The burden of the judicial opinion is to explain and to persuade and to satisfy the world that the decision is principled and sound. What the court says, …

Supreme Verbosity: The Roberts Court's Expanding Legacy

Marquette Law Review

The link between courts and the public is the written word. With rare exceptions, it is through judicial opinions that courts communicate with litigants, lawyers, other courts, and the community. Whatever the court’s statutory and constitutional status, the written word, in the end, is the source and the measure of the court’s authority.

It is therefore not enough that a decision be correct—it must also be fair and reasonable and readily understood. The burden of the judicial opinion is to explain and to persuade and to satisfy the world that the decision is principled and sound. What the court says, …

Attracting Undue Scrutiny On Appeal: An Appellate Judge's Perspective, Marshall L. Davidson Iii

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

The Use Of Mediation As A Complement To The Integrated Domestic Violence Courts Of New York, Lauren K. Williams

Cardozo Journal of Conflict Resolution

In 2001, New York created the Integrated Domestic Violence Courts in order to more efficiently and more comprehensively address domestic violence cases. Domestic violence cases that were formerly spread out between two or three different courts can now be resolved in front of one judge. While this new court does minimize the hassle for the parties involved in the dispute and does eliminate inconsistent rulings by different judges in different courts, this new court structure does not address some problems that have existed with courts' approaches to resolving domestic violence. These problems include (1) that abusers can often afford to …

Transtemporal Separation Of Powers In The Law Of Precedent, Randy Beck

Scholarly Works

The rule of stare decisis creates a presumption that a court’s ruling on a legal question remains binding in later decisions by the same court or hierarchically inferior courts. This presumption promotes stability in the law and protects reliance interests. Decisions that narrowly construe or overrule prior opinions can therefore seem like unprincipled threats to the rule of law.

This article seeks to highlight some countervailing themes in the case law, showing that stability and the protection of reliance interests are not the exclusive concerns underlying the law of precedent. The relevant doctrine attempts to balance these objectives with competing …

Law, Politics, And The Erosion Of Legitimacy In The Delaware Courts, Kent Greenfield

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.