Law Commons^™

Conflict Of Interest And Disqualification In The Federal Courts: Suggestions For Reform, Arthur D. Hellman

Testimony

Although federal judges do not run for election, over the last three decades the process of nomination and confirmation has become politicized to a disturbing degree. There is a real danger that the judges will come to be perceived not as dispassionate servants of the law but as political actors who pursue political or ideological agendas. One consequence of these developments is likely to be increased scrutiny of judges’ responses to motions to recuse. Here as in other aspects of the operations of the judiciary, “just trust us” is no longer sufficient.

Two provisions of Title 28 of the United …

Slides: Indian Water Rights, Robert T. Anderson

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Robert T. Anderson, Native American Law Center, University of Washington Law School

19 slides

A Call For The End Of The Doctrine Of Realignment, Jacob S. Sherkow

Articles & Chapters

In Indianapolis v. Chase National Bank, 1941, the Supreme Court established the doctrine of realignment, requiring federal courts to examine the issues in dispute and realign each party as plaintiff or defendant if necessary. Due to the complete diversity requirement, realignment gave the federal courts the ability to both create and destroy diversity jurisdiction. Since 1941, the federal courts have struggled to interpret the central holding in Indianapolis, and have created several competing "tests" for realignment. This confusion has made the doctrine of realignment unworkable. Realignment-along with each of the present tests-encourages jurisdictional abuses by forcing the federal courts to …

Jurisdiction's Noble Lie, Frederic M. Bloom

Publications

This Article makes sense of a lie. It shows how legal jurisdiction depends on a falsehood--and then explains why it would.

To make this novel argument, this Article starts where jurisdiction does. It recounts jurisdiction's foundations--its tests and motives, its histories and rules. It then seeks out jurisdictional reality, critically examining a side of jurisdiction we too often overlook. Legal jurisdiction may portray itself as fixed and unyielding, as natural as the force of gravity, and as stable as the firmest ground. But jurisdiction is in fact something different. It is a malleable legal invention that bears a false rigid …

Another Voice For The 'Dialogue': Federal Courts As A Litigation Course, Arthur D. Hellman

Articles

The traditional course in "Federal Courts" - built on the model established by the great Hart and Wechsler casebook - focuses on issues of federalism, separation of powers, and institutional competence. That focus provides a powerful intellectual model for organizing the materials that make up the field of study, and it is hard to imagine anyone teaching a Federal Courts course today without drawing heavily on that model. But the traditional model is deficient in one important respect. Most of the students who take a Federal Courts course do so because they think it will help them to practice law …

The Federal Courts As A Franchise: Rethinking The Justifications For Federal Question Jurisdiction, Gil Seinfeld

Articles

The components of the Federal Franchise model-procedural homogeneity, cultural conformity, and technical competence-should be familiar. The federal courts' capacity to provide these benefits has not escaped commentators' notice; indeed, there are points of connection between these features of federal court adjudication and the individual fragments of the conventional account.l0 But prior scholarly discussion of these themes has been unsystematic, treating them as (at best) secondary considerations when it comes to the allocation of federal question cases between the state and federal courts. This Article attempts to weave together these previously disconnected strands of thinking about federal court adjudication and to …