Law Commons^™

Servotronics, Inc. V. Rolls-Royce Plc And The Boeing Company: Brief Of Professor Yanbai Andrea Wang As Amicus Curiae In Support Of Neither Party, Yanbai Andrea Wang, Michael H. Mcginley

All Faculty Scholarship

Rather than expressing a view on the issues raised and ably briefed by the parties, amicus submits this brief to inform the Court of the scholarly research she has conducted regarding Section 1782 proceedings since this Court’s seminal decision in Intel. As Section 1782 applications have proliferated, the lower courts have struggled to apply the Intel factors as this Court had envisioned. Especially in the context of Section 1782 applications submitted by parties to an international proceeding (as opposed to those made by the international tribunal itself), lower courts have frequently found themselves unable to analyze and apply the …

Exposing Police Misconduct In Pre-Trial Criminal Proceedings, Anjelica Hendricks

All Faculty Scholarship

This Article presents a unique argument: police misconduct records should be accessible and applicable for pre-trial criminal proceedings. Unfortunately, the existing narrative on the value of police misconduct records is narrow because it exclusively considers how these records can be used to impeach officer credibility at trial. This focus is limiting for several reasons. First, it addresses too few defendants, since fewer than 3% of criminal cases make it to trial. Second, it overlooks misconduct records not directly addressing credibility—such as records demonstrating paperwork deficiencies, failures to appear in court, and “mistakes” that upon examination are patterns of abuse. Finally, …

The Law And Economics Of Proportionality In Discovery, Jonah B. Gelbach, Bruce H. Kobayashi

All Faculty Scholarship

This paper analyzes the proportionality standard in discovery. Many believe the Advisory Committee's renewed emphasis on this standard has the potential to infuse litigation practice with considerably more attention to questions related to the costs and benefits of discovery. We discuss the history and rationale of proportionality's inclusion in Rule 26, adopting an analytical framework that focuses on how costs and benefits can diverge in litigation generally, and discovery in particular. Finally, we use this framework to understand the mechanics and challenges involved in deploying the six factors included in the proportionality standard. Throughout, we emphasize that the proportionality standard …

Can Simple Mechanism Design Results Be Used To Implement The Proportionality Standard In Discovery?, Jonah B. Gelbach

All Faculty Scholarship

I point out that the Coase theorem suggests there should not be wasteful discovery, in the sense that the value to the requester is less than the cost to the responder. I use a toy model to show that a sufficiently informed court could design a mechanism under which the Coasean prediction is borne out. I then suggest that the actual information available to courts is too little to effect this mechanism, and I consider alternatives. In discussing mechanisms intended to avoid wasteful discovery where courts have limited information, I emphasize the role of normative considerations.

Expert Mining And Required Disclosure, Jonah B. Gelbach

All Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Whither Bespoke Procedure?, David A. Hoffman

All Faculty Scholarship

Increasingly we hear that civil procedure lurks in the shadow of private law. Scholars suggest that the civil rules are mere defaults, applying if the parties fail to contract around them. When judges confront terms modifying court procedures — a trend said to be explosive — they seem all-too-willing to surrender to the inevitable logic of private and efficient private ordering. * How concerned should we be? This Article casts a wide net to find examples of private contracts governing procedure, and finds a decided absence of evidence. I search a large database of agreements entered into by public firms, …

Litigating Toward Settlement, Christina L. Boyd, David A. Hoffman

All Faculty Scholarship

Civil litigation typically ends when the parties compromise. While existing theories of settlement primarily focus on information exchange, we instead examine how motion practice, especially non-discovery motions, can substantially shape parties’ knowledge about their cases and thereby influence the timing of settlement. Using docket-level federal district court data, we find a number of strong effects regarding how motions can influence this process, including that the filing of a motion significantly speeds case settlement, that granted motions are more immediately critical to settlement timing than motions denied, and that plaintiff victories have a stronger effect than defendant victories. These results provide …

Inventing Norms, William Hubbard

All Faculty Scholarship

Patent law strives to promote the progress of technology by encouraging invention. Traditionally, scholars contend that patent law achieves this goal by creating financial incentives to invent in the form of exclusive rights to new technology. This traditional view of invention, however, fails to recognize that inventors are motivated by more than money. Like most people, inventors are also motivated by social norms, that is, shared normative beliefs favoring certain actions while disfavoring others. This Article argues that many Americans embrace social norms that favor and encourage successful invention. Because of these "inventing norms" inventors enjoy enhanced personal satisfaction and …

Pleading And Access To Civil Procedure: Historical And Comparative Reflections On Iqbal, A Day In Court And A Decision According To Law, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

The Iqbal decision confirms the breakdown of contemporary American civil procedure. We know what civil procedure should do, and we know that our civil procedure is not doing it. Civil procedure should facilitate determining rights according to law. It should help courts and parties apply law to facts accurately, fairly, expeditiously and efficiently. This article reflects on three historic American system failures and reports a foreign success story.

Pleadings can help courts do what we know courts should do: decide case on the merits, accurately, fairly, expeditiously and efficiently. Pleadings facilitate a day in court when focused on deciding according …

International Idealism Meets Domestic-Criminal-Procedure Realism, Stephanos Bibas, William W. Burke-White

All Faculty Scholarship

Though international criminal justice has developed into a flourishing judicial system over the last two decades, scholars have neglected institutional design and procedure questions. International criminal-procedure scholarship has developed in isolation from its domestic counterpart but could learn much realism from it. Given its current focus on atrocities like genocide, international criminal law’s main purpose should be not only to inflict retribution, but also to restore wounded communities by bringing the truth to light. The international justice system needs more ideological balance, more stable career paths, and civil-service expertise. It also needs to draw on the domestic experience of federalism …

The Expert In U.S. And German Patent Litigation, James Maxeiner

All Faculty Scholarship

The expert often plays a crucial role in patent litigation in both Germany and the United States. Determination of facts and application of law to facts frequently require a technical understanding that only an expert can provide. Despite the similarity of the problem of conveying information to the decision-maker, the role of the expert in the two systems and the manner in which the problem of providing technical knowledge necessary for the decision is solved are so very different, that German jurists who transfer their German experiences and expectations over to US procedures, are in danger of experiencing great disappointment …