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Full-Text Articles in Law

Employment Discrimination Plaintiffs In Federal Court: From Bad To Worse?, Kevin M. Clermont, Stewart J. Schwab Dec 2014

Employment Discrimination Plaintiffs In Federal Court: From Bad To Worse?, Kevin M. Clermont, Stewart J. Schwab

Kevin M. Clermont

This Article utilizes the Administrative Office's data to convey the realities of federal employment discrimination litigation. Litigants in these "jobs" cases appeal more often than other litigants, with the defendants doing far better on those appeals than the plaintiffs. These troublesome facts help explain why today fewer plaintiffs are undertaking the frustrating route into federal district court, where plaintiffs must pursue their claims relatively often all the way through trial and where at both pretrial and trial these plaintiffs lose unusually often.


One Hundred Nos: An Empirical Analysis Of The First 100 Denials Of Institution For Inter Partes And Covered Business Method Patent Reviews, Jonathan R. K. Stroud, Jarrad Wood Sep 2014

One Hundred Nos: An Empirical Analysis Of The First 100 Denials Of Institution For Inter Partes And Covered Business Method Patent Reviews, Jonathan R. K. Stroud, Jarrad Wood

Jonathan R. K. Stroud

Tasked in 2011 with creating three powerful new patent review trial regimes, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office—through the efforts of their freshly empowered quasi-judicial body, the Patent Trial and Appeals Board—set to creating a fast-paced trial with minimal discovery and maximum efficiency. In the first two years of existence, the proceedings have proved potent, holding unpatentable many of the claims that reach decisions on the merits. Yet a small subsection of petitions never make it past the starting gate, resulting in wasted time and effort on the parts of petitioners—and likely sighs of relief from the rights-holders. Parties on …


Context Matters--What Lawyers Say About Choice Of Law Decisions In Merger Agreements, Juliet P. Kostritsky Aug 2014

Context Matters--What Lawyers Say About Choice Of Law Decisions In Merger Agreements, Juliet P. Kostritsky

Juliet P Kostritsky

ABSTRACT: The study of choice of law provisions in merger agreements yields various theories as to how much thought parties put into them, and what factors influence such decisions. Eisenberg and Miller found a shift to New York law and other scholars later hypothesized that parties specify New York law rather than Delaware law because New York law is more formalistic. However, a study of 343 merger agreements, consisting of 15 lawyer interviews and a survey sent to 812 lawyers, suggests differently. First, there is no shift from Delaware to New York. Second, a desire for formalistic law is not …


What Patent Attorney Fee Awards Really Look Like, Saurabh Vishnubhakat Apr 2014

What Patent Attorney Fee Awards Really Look Like, Saurabh Vishnubhakat

Faculty Scholarship

This essay gives an empirical account of attorney fee awards over the last decade of patent litigation. Given the current attention in legislative proposals and on the Supreme Court’s docket to more liberal fee shifting as a check on abusive patent litigation, a fuller descriptive understanding of the current regime is of utmost importance to forming sound patent litigation policy. Following a brief overview of judicial experience in patent cases and trends in patent case filing, this study presents analysis of over 200 attorney fee award orders during 2003-2013.

The study confirms the commonsense view that plaintiffs have tended to …


An Empirical Analysis Of The Infield Fly Rule, Howard M. Wasserman Feb 2014

An Empirical Analysis Of The Infield Fly Rule, Howard M. Wasserman

Howard M Wasserman

Legal scholars have written extensively about baseball’s Infield Fly Rule--its history and logic, its use as legal metaphor, and its cost-benefit policy rationales. This paper now conducts the first empirical analysis of the rule, exploring whether the rule’s legal and policy justifications are statistically supported. Based on a review of every fly ball caught by an infielder in the relevant game situation in Major League Baseball from 2010-2013, this paper measures the frequency and location of Infield Fly calls and the effect the rule has on individual games, all to determine whether the feared cost-benefit disparities that motivate the rule …