Law Commons^™

Considering The Therapeutic Consequences Of Recent Reforms To Civil Statutes Of Limitations For Child Sexual Abuse Claims, Emma Hetherington

Scholarly Works

In recent years, child sexual abuse has emerged as a major topic of news, documentaries, and Hollywood films. Public attention on child sexual abuse, including the Boston Globe's reporting on the sexual abuse of children by priests in the Catholic Church, sexual abuse of elite gymnasts, and the #MeToo movement, have brought increased attention to the issue, sparking calls for reform and access to justice. State legislatures across the country have answered these calls for reform by seeking to improve civil statutes of limitation in order to increase survivor access to justice. Between 2002 and 2020, forty-eight states and the …

Licensing Paralegals To Practice Law: A Path Toward Bridging The Justice Gap In Minnesota, Conner Suddick

Departmental Honors Projects

There are few legal avenues for low-income and other marginalized groups in the United States to seek civil justice. A lack of legal assistance in civil issues can be detrimental to a person’s health and wellbeing. Given this reality, the legal profession must broaden its capacity to serve these needs, and one path is to embrace the aid of paralegals. In 2016, the legal community of Minnesota had conversations about whether the state should provide limited licenses to paralegals. To study models from across the country, the Minnesota State Bar Association (MSBA) formed the Alternative Legal Models Task Force. In …

Having A Say: Democracy, Access To Justice And Self-Represented Litigants, Jennifer Ann Leitch

PhD Dissertations

Access to Justice is one of the most contested issues on the law-and-society agenda. There is a long-standing exchange over its meaning, objectives, and success. Beneath that engagement, there is a deeper and more basic debate about the overall ambitions for access to justice: is the goal to improve peoples access to the legal process and generate more positive outcomes (the practical thesis), or to enhance peoples participation and ultimately their ability to affect justice as an end in itself (the democratic thesis)? This thesis adopts the latter approach.

The plight of self-represented litigants (SRLs) offers a revealing glimpse into …

A Survey And Some Commentary On Federal "Tort Reform", Michael P. Allen

Akron Law Review

In Part I, I survey the potential types of federal tort reform. While many of these types of reform measures could be adopted at the state level as well as nationally, some important ones could not. It is on those uniquely federal measures that I focus much of my attention. This section also considers the interrelationships of the branches of government as well as the political and legal advantages and disadvantages of various types of reform. In Part II, I discuss some of the legislation adopted in the wake of the September 11th terrorist attacks. That legislation provides a useful …

Perceptions Of Civil Justice: The Litigation Crisis Attitudes Of Civil Jurors, Valerie P. Hans, William S. Lofquist

Valerie P. Hans

Public perceptions that the civil justice system is in crisis are apparently widespread, but little is known about the causes or correlates of such views. This article analyzes the litigation crisis attitudes of a sample of civil jurors. Like the public, jurors endorsed a number of statements suggesting that there is a litigation crisis. Factor analysis identified two independent components: general concern over excessive litigation, and criticism of the civil jury. Litigation crisis views were found in all demographic and attitudinal subgroups. However, attitudes about the civil justice system were related to the respondent's political efficacy, claims consciousness, belief in …

Uncovering The Silent Victims Of The American Medical Liability System, Joanna Shepherd

Faculty Articles

A frequently overlooked problem with the current medical liability system is the vast number of medical errors that go uncompensated. Although studies indicate that 1% of hospital patients are victims of medical negligence, fewer than 2% of these injured patients file claims. In this Article, I explain that many victims of medical malpractice do not file claims because they are unable to find attorneys willing to take their cases.

I conducted the first national survey of attorneys to explore medical malpractice victims' access to the civil justice system. The results from the survey indicate that the economic reality of litigation …

On The Theory Class's Theories Of Asbestos Litigation: The Disconnect Between Scholarship And Reality?, Lester Brickman

Pepperdine Law Review

More than 100,000 new asbestos claims were filed in 2003, the most ever in one year. Asbestos litigation thus continues to thrive even though 80-90% of claimants have no illness recognized by medical science, let alone suffer any lung impairment. To explain how this disconnect between medical science and tort litigation has come about, I cover the following subjects: 1) medical consequences of exposure to asbestos-containing materials; 2) the phenomenon of the unimpaired claimant; 3) medical evidence with regard to the incidence of asbestosis; 4) the effect on asbestos litigation of the failure of the Manville Trust audit to be …

Transparency Through Insurance: Mandates Dominate Discretion, Tom Baker

All Faculty Scholarship

This chapter describes how liability insurance has contributed to the transparency of the civil justice system. The chapter makes three main points. First, much of what we know about the empirics of the civil justice system comes from access to liability insurance data and personnel. Second, as long as access to liability insurance data and personnel depends on the discretion of liability insurance organizations, this knowledge will be incomplete and, most likely, biased in favor of the public policy agenda of the organizations providing discretionary access to the data. Third, although mandatory disclosure of liability insurance data would improve transparency, …

What's So Funny About Peace, Love, And Understanding? Restorative Justice As A New Paradigm For Domestic Violence Intervention, Laurie S. Kohn

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Article explores the viability of an alternative dispute resolution system as an alternative to the civil justice system in the area of domestic violence. It considers the implementation of a system that draws on principles of restorative justice. Such an innovation would complement the current justice system interventions with an additional avenue of recourse that allows for more flexibility and creativity.

Although restorative justice principles have been used extensively in the juvenile justice system, they have been suggested amidst much controversy as a response to intimate partner violence, and have been implemented in only an extremely limited way. The …

Texas Plaintiffs’ Practice In The Age Of Tort Reform: Survival Of The Fittest — It’S Even More True Now, Stephen Daniels, Joanne Martin

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

The View From The Bottomless Pit: Truth, Myth, And Irony In A Civil Action, Jerome P. Facher

Seattle University Law Review

This Article offers the observations, analysis, and commentary of Beatrice's chief trial counsel about some of the important issues and rulings in Anderson, the accuracy of the events reported in A Civil Action, and the misimpressions created by the book's undoubted tilt in the plaintiffs' direction. Wherever possible, this Article's effort to balance the scales relies on court records, trial and hearing transcripts, and on other actual trial materials in Anderson to present the relevant facts and events in the context in which they arose. Contrary to the erroneous impression of justice gone astray created by the book …

Perceptions Of Civil Justice: The Litigation Crisis Attitudes Of Civil Jurors, Valerie P. Hans, William S. Lofquist

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Public perceptions that the civil justice system is in crisis are apparently widespread, but little is known about the causes or correlates of such views. This article analyzes the litigation crisis attitudes of a sample of civil jurors. Like the public, jurors endorsed a number of statements suggesting that there is a litigation crisis. Factor analysis identified two independent components: general concern over excessive litigation, and criticism of the civil jury. Litigation crisis views were found in all demographic and attitudinal subgroups. However, attitudes about the civil justice system were related to the respondent's political efficacy, claims consciousness, belief in …

Limiting Punitive Damages: A Placebo For America's Ailing Competitiveness., Jimmie O. Clements Jr.

St. Mary's Law Journal

This Comment will discuss Vice President Dan Quayle’s proposed legislation by reviewing the history of punitive damages and providing an overview of current state legislation. Thereafter, this Comment debunks the theory of an unruly punitive damage system and analyzes the impact of a punitive damages cap on competitiveness, quality, safety and the doctrine’s underlying goals. On August 13, 1991, Vice President Quayle, as head of the President’s Council on Competitiveness (the Council), addressed the American Bar Association’s annual meeting. He announced a fifty-point proposal designed to improve the civil justice system. Vice President Quayle proposed, inter alia, a cap on …