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The Field Of State Civil Courts, Anna E. Carpenter, Alyx Mark, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg
The Field Of State Civil Courts, Anna E. Carpenter, Alyx Mark, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg
Faculty Scholarship
This symposium Issue of the Columbia Law Review marks a moment of convergence and opportunity for an emerging field of legal scholarship focused on America’s state civil trial courts. Historically, legal scholarship has treated state civil courts as, at best, a mere footnote in conversations about civil law and procedure, federalism, and judicial behavior. But the status quo is shifting. As this Issue demonstrates, legal scholars are examining our most common civil courts as sites for understanding law, legal institutions, and how people experience civil justice. This engagement is essential for inquiries into how courts shape and respond to social …
The Institutional Mismatch Of State Civil Courts, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark, Anna E. Carpenter
The Institutional Mismatch Of State Civil Courts, Colleen F. Shanahan, Jessica K. Steinberg, Alyx Mark, Anna E. Carpenter
Faculty Scholarship
State civil courts are central institutions in American democracy. Though designed for dispute resolution, these courts function as emergency rooms for social needs in the face of the failure of the legislative and executive branches to disrupt or mitigate inequality. We reconsider national case data to analyze the presence of social needs in state civil cases. We then use original data from courtroom observation and interviews to theorize how state civil courts grapple with the mismatch between the social needs people bring to these courts and their institutional design. This institutional mismatch leads to two roles of state civil courts …