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Full-Text Articles in Law

Busting Up The Pretrial Industry, Andrew S. Pollis Jan 2017

Busting Up The Pretrial Industry, Andrew S. Pollis

Faculty Publications

It is by now axiomatic that the objective of the civil lawsuit has evolved. Litigants no longer routinely resolve their disputes through trial but instead engage in pretrial battles designed to extract favorable settlements. Modern litigation revolves around protracted discovery and dispositive motions, driven by two primary dynamics: (1) the maximization of fees for lawyers who charge their clients by the hour; and (2) the desire to make litigation as painful as possible for an adversary so that settlement becomes the adversary’s better option. We have, in short, fostered a pretrial industry that can relegate the merits of a dispute …


Pleading Patterns And The Role Of Litigation As A Driver Of Federal Climate Change Legislation, Juscelino F. Colares, Kosta Ristovski Jan 2014

Pleading Patterns And The Role Of Litigation As A Driver Of Federal Climate Change Legislation, Juscelino F. Colares, Kosta Ristovski

Faculty Publications

Based on a variant of the Elliott-Ackerman-Millian theory that variable, potentially inconsistent and costly litigation outcomes induce industry to seek federal preemptive legislation to reign in such costs, we collect data on climate change-related litigation to determine whether litigation might motivate major greenhouse gas emitters to accept a preemptive, though possibly carbon-restricting, legislative compromise. We conduct a spectral cluster analysis on 178 initial federal and state judicial filings to reveal the most relevant groupings among climate change-related suits and their underlying pleading patterns. Besides exposing the general content and structure of climate change-related filings, this study identifies major specific pleading …


Regulating Electronic Legal Support Across State And National Boundaries, Cassandra Burke Robertson Jan 2014

Regulating Electronic Legal Support Across State And National Boundaries, Cassandra Burke Robertson

Faculty Publications

Technology and globalization are changing the practice of law and creating new challenges for lawyer regulation. Middle-class litigants who struggle to afford legal services — but are comfortable using online resources — are increasingly seeking and finding legal support online. State and national boundaries dissolve in the online marketplace, making it easy for attorneys to provide services to litigants in other jurisdictions. Differences in national economies make it cost effective for both clients and lawyers to engage in transnational practice, so that attorneys in India and other jurisdictions can offer legal support and advice to American litigants for as little …


Forum Non Conveniens And Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments, Christopher A. Whytock, Cassandra Burke Robertson Jan 2011

Forum Non Conveniens And Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments, Christopher A. Whytock, Cassandra Burke Robertson

Faculty Publications

When citizens of Ecuador sued Texaco, Inc. in a U.S. court seeking damages for oil contamination in the Amazon, Texaco successfully moved to dismiss the suit in favor of Ecuador based on the forum non conveniens doctrine, arguing – as that doctrine requires – that Ecuador was an adequate alternative forum and more appropriate than the United States for hearing the suit. The plaintiffs then refiled the suit in Ecuador, and a court there entered a multi-billion dollar judgment against Chevron Corporation, which had merged with Texaco. Chevron now argues that the Ecuadorian legal system suffers from deficiencies that should …


The Problems Of Plagiarism As An Ethics Offense, Peter A. Joy, Kevin C. Mcmunigal Jan 2011

The Problems Of Plagiarism As An Ethics Offense, Peter A. Joy, Kevin C. Mcmunigal

Faculty Publications

This column questions the practices of labeling attorney copying, even without acknowledgement, as plagiarism, and treating it as a per se ethics violation. Instead, the column argues that analysis of copying in the litigation context should focus directly on the quality of the filing at issue and the competence and diligence of the lawyer who prepared it.


Adverse Inference About Adverse Inferences: Restructuring Juridical Roles For Responding To Evidence Tampering By Parties To Litigation, Dale A. Nance Jan 2010

Adverse Inference About Adverse Inferences: Restructuring Juridical Roles For Responding To Evidence Tampering By Parties To Litigation, Dale A. Nance

Faculty Publications

For at least two centuries, Anglo-American courts have responded to a party's evidence tampering by allowing the opponent to argue to jurors that they should draw an adverse inference against the offending party in deciding the merits of the case. This Article argues that the use of such inferences, and invitations to draw them, should be radically curtailed, not only because of the ambiguities and risks of prejudice that such inferences entail, but more importantly because they reflect and contribute to a confusion of roles in which the jury is enlisted to participate in the management of the pre-trial conduct …


Scientific Evidence In Criminal Prosecutions - A Retrospective, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 2010

Scientific Evidence In Criminal Prosecutions - A Retrospective, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Scientific Evidence And Prosecutorial Misconduct In The Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 2009

Scientific Evidence And Prosecutorial Misconduct In The Duke Lacrosse Rape Case, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

The need for pretrial discovery in criminal cases is critical. A defendant's right to confrontation, effective assistance of counsel, and due process often turns on pretrial disclosure. This essay discusses a case that demonstrates this point.


Nontestimonial Identification Orders For Dna Testing, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 2008

Nontestimonial Identification Orders For Dna Testing, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Pretrial Discovery Of Expert Testimony, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 2008

Pretrial Discovery Of Expert Testimony, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Daubert Challenges To Firearms (“Ballistics”) Identifications, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 2007

Daubert Challenges To Firearms (“Ballistics”) Identifications, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Joinder & Severance Of Offenses, Paul C. Giannelli Mar 2006

Joinder & Severance Of Offenses, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Closing Argument: Prosecution Misconduct, Paul C. Giannelli Mar 2006

Closing Argument: Prosecution Misconduct, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Joinder & Severance Of Defendants, Paul C. Giannelli Mar 2006

Joinder & Severance Of Defendants, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Daubert Challenges To Fingerprints, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 2006

Daubert Challenges To Fingerprints, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Appellate Review Of Discovery Orders In Federal Court: A Suggested Approach For Handling Privilege Claims, Cassandra Burke Robertson Jan 2006

Appellate Review Of Discovery Orders In Federal Court: A Suggested Approach For Handling Privilege Claims, Cassandra Burke Robertson

Faculty Publications

The federal circuit courts of appeals have generally recognized that a party suffers real hardship when the district court erroneously orders it to disclose privileged information. Review of the disclosure order after final judgment is usually an insufficient remedy; once the information has been disclosed, it can never again be fully confidential. Consequently, the courts have struggled to provide a mechanism by which such orders can be immediately appealed. However, privilege orders presenting novel questions of law or issues of first impression do not clearly fit within the doctrinal requirements of the most common methods of interlocutory review. Appellate courts …


Scientific Evidence In Civil And Criminal Cases, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 2001

Scientific Evidence In Civil And Criminal Cases, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Character Evidence, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 2001

Character Evidence, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


“Other Acts” Evidence: Part Ii, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 2001

“Other Acts” Evidence: Part Ii, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Expert Qualifications: Traps For The Unwary, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 2000

Expert Qualifications: Traps For The Unwary, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


New Developments In Scientific Evidence, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 2000

New Developments In Scientific Evidence, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Impeachment: Evidence Amendments, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 1999

Impeachment: Evidence Amendments, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Hearsay: Traps & Problem Issues, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 1998

Hearsay: Traps & Problem Issues, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


The After-Acquired Evidence Rule: The Best Of All Possible Worlds?, Sharona Hoffman Jan 1996

The After-Acquired Evidence Rule: The Best Of All Possible Worlds?, Sharona Hoffman

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Junk Science, Daubert, And Ohio Rule 702, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 1994

Junk Science, Daubert, And Ohio Rule 702, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Polygraph Evidence: Part Ii, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 1994

Polygraph Evidence: Part Ii, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Confrontation Issues In Child Abuse Cases, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 1994

Confrontation Issues In Child Abuse Cases, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Polygraph Evidence: Part I, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 1994

Polygraph Evidence: Part I, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Rape Trauma Syndrome & Child Sexual Abuse Syndrome, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 1993

Rape Trauma Syndrome & Child Sexual Abuse Syndrome, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


“Junk Science”: The Criminal Cases, Paul C. Giannelli Jan 1993

“Junk Science”: The Criminal Cases, Paul C. Giannelli

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.