Law Commons^™

Litigation Realities, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

After both summarizing recent empirical work and presenting new observations on each of the six phases of a civil lawsuit (forum, pretrial, settlement, trial, judgment, and appeal), the authors draw a series of lessons for understanding and using empirical methods in the study of the legal system's operation. In so doing, they generate implications for current and projected policy debates concerning litigation, while identifying areas that demand further empirical work.

Educational Jujitsu: How School Finance Lawyers Learned To Turn Standards And Accountability Into Dollars, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Tailored Police Testimony At Suppression Hearings, Joel Atlas

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Whether a court must suppress evidence typically turns on the conduct or observations of the police officer who discovered the evidence. By falsely testifying to the facts surrounding the discovery of the evidence, a police officer may validate a blatantly unconstitutional search. New York courts have long recognized that police officers sometimes fabricate suppression testimony to meet constitutional restrictions. Indeed, the Appellate Division has rejected police testimony at suppression hearings where the officer’s testimony appears to have been “patently tailored to nullify constitutional objections.” Although, to be sure, rejections are rare and their number appears to be declining, the appellate …

Judging By Heuristic: Cognitive Illusions In Judicial Decision Making, Chris Guthrie, Jeffrey J. Rachlinski, Andrew J. Wistrich

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Many people rely on mental shortcuts, or heuristics, to make complex decisions, but this sometimes leads to inaccurate inferences, or cognitive illusions. A recent study suggests such cognitive illusions influence judicial decision making.

The Courts, Educational Policy, And Unintended Consequences, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Recent school finance litigation illustrates yet again how law can generate unintended policy consequences. Seeking to improve student achievement and school accountability, more states now turn to educational standards and assessments. At the same time, a multi-decade school finance litigation effort develops and changes its theoretical base. Recently, educational standards and school finance litigation converged in a way that enables school districts to gain financially from their inability to meet desired achievement levels. Specifically, courts increasingly allow litigants and lawsuits to transform standards and assessments into constitutional entitlements to additional resources. As a consequence, increased legal and financial exposure for …

Asbestos Litigation Gone Mad: Exposure-Based Recovery For Increased Risk, Mental Distress, And Medical Monitoring, James A. Henderson Jr., Aaron Twerski

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Ethics Of Enterprise Liability In Product Design And Marketing Litigation, James A. Henderson Jr.

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

American courts talk as though they are imposing strict enterprise liability on product manufacturers, but in truth they do so only with respect to manufacturing defects. In product design and marketing litigation, manufacturers' liability is based on fault. The reason why strict liability is inappropriate for the generic product hazards associated with design and marketing is that, in sharp contrast to manufacturing defects, the conditions necessary for insurance to function are not satisfied. Users and consumers control generic product risks to a sufficiently great extent that any insurance scheme based on strict enterprise liability would be destroyed by combinations of …

Studying Labor Law And Human Resources In Rhode Island, Stewart J. Schwab

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Our task today is to celebrate, inaugurate, and educate. Lawyers demanded the education part of the talk because they love double counting whenever possible. The lawyers in our audience get Continuing Legal Education credits for attending. That's just one illustration of how to think like a lawyer--kill as many birds with as few stones as possible.

Lawyers are often accused of talking in an arcane language that no one else can understand. Labor-relations people are sometimes thought to be either pie-in-the-sky optimists or Marxist-inspired anarchists. Human-relations professionals are sometimes said to be hypocrites giving a fake smile to employees while …

Juries, Judges, And Punitive Damages: An Empirical Study, Theodore Eisenberg, Neil Lafountain, Brian Ostrom, David Rottman, Martin T. Wells

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article, the first broad-based analysis of punitive damages in judge-tried cases, compares judge and jury performance in awarding punitive damages and in setting their levels. Data covering one year of judge and jury trial outcomes from forty-five of the nation's largest counties yield no substantial evidence that judges and juries differ in the rate at which they award punitive damages or in the central relation between the size of punitive awards and compensatory awards. The relation between punitive and compensatory awards in jury trials is strikingly similar to the relation in judge trials. For a given level of compensatory …

U.S. Jury Reform: The Active Jury And The Adversarial Ideal, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In many countries, lay people participate as decision makers in legal cases. Some countries include their citizens in the justice system as lay judges or jurors, who assess cases independently. The legal systems of other nations combine lay and law-trained judges who decide cases together in mixed tribunals. The International Conference on Lay Participation in the Criminal Trial in the 21st Century provided useful contrasts among different methods of incorporating lay voices into criminal justice systems worldwide. Systems with inquisitorial methods are more likely to employ mixed courts, whereas adversarial systems more often use juries. Research presented at the Conference …

Plaintiphobia In The Appellate Courts: Civil Rights Really Do Differ From Negotiable Instruments, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Professors Clermont and Eisenberg conducted a systematic analysis of appellate court behavior and report that defendants have a substantial advantage over plaintiffs on appeal. Their analysis attempted to control for different variables that may affect the decision to appeal or the appellate outcome, including case complexity, case type, amount in controversy, and whether there had been a judge or a jury trial. Once they accounted for these variables and explored and discarded various alternate explanations, they came to the conclusion that a defendants' advantage exists probably because of appellate judges' misperceptions that trial level adjudicators are pro-plaintiff.

Judge Harry Edwards: A Case In Point!, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Judge Harry Edwards dislikes empirical work that is not flattering to federal appellate judges. A few years ago Dean Richard Revesz published an empirical study of the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit providing further support for the rather tame proposition that judges’ political orientation has some effect on outcome in some politically charged cases. A year later Judge Edwards published a criticism phrased in extreme terms. Dean Revesz then wrote a devastating reply by which he demonstrated that Judge Edwards “is simply wrong with respect to each of the numerous criticisms that he levels.” We believe …

The Scottsboro Trials: A Legal Lynching, Faust Rossi

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Lawyer Conduct In The "Tobacco Wars", Roger C. Cramton

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.