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2010

Litigation

Faculty Working Papers

Litigation and civil procedure

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Hearings, Mark Spottswood Jan 2010

Hearings, Mark Spottswood

Faculty Working Papers

This article explores a constantly recurring procedural question: When is fact-finding improved by a live hearing, and when would it be better to rely on a written record? Unfortunately, when judges, lawyers, and rulemakers consider this issue, they are led astray by the widely shared—but false—assumption that a judge can best determine issues of credibility by viewing the demeanor of witnesses while they are testifying. In fact, a large body of scientific evidence indicates that judges are more likely to be deceived by lying or mistaken witnesses when observing their testimony in person than if the judges were to review …


Interlocutory Review By Agreement Of The Parties: A Preliminary Analysis, James Pfander, Dave Pekarek-Krohn Jan 2010

Interlocutory Review By Agreement Of The Parties: A Preliminary Analysis, James Pfander, Dave Pekarek-Krohn

Faculty Working Papers

Although the nineteenth century's final judgment rule no longer represents an absolute barrier to interlocutory appellate review, scholars disagree about what should take its place. Some favor a regime of discretionary interlocutory review, with power conferred on appellate courts to select issues that warrant intervention. Others reject discretionary review as a waste of appellate resources and call upon the rule makers to identify specific categories of non-final orders that always warrant review. While the Supreme Court's collateral order doctrine bears some similarity to this process of categorization, the Court may have called a halt to the judicial recognition of new …