Law Commons^™

Racial Capitalism In The Civil Courts, Tonya L. Brito, Kathryn A. Sabbeth, Jessica Steinberg, Lauren Sudeall

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This Essay explores how civil courts function as sites of racial capitalism. The racial capitalism conceptual framework posits that capitalism requires racial inequality and relies on racialized systems of expropriation to produce capital. While often associated with traditional economic systems, racial capitalism applies equally to nonmarket settings, including civil courts.

The lens of racial capitalism enriches access to justice scholarship by explaining how and why state civil courts subordinate racialized groups and individuals. Civil cases are often framed as voluntary disputes among private parties, yet many racially and economically marginalized litigants enter the civil legal system involuntarily, and the state …

Judges And The Deregulation Of The Lawyer's Monopoly, Jessica Steinberg, Anna E. Carpenter, Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

In a revolutionary moment for the legal profession, the deregulation of legal services is taking hold in many parts of the country. Utah and Arizona, for instance, are experimenting with new regulations that permit nonlawyer advocates to play an active role in assisting citizens who may not otherwise have access to legal services. In addition, amendments to the Rules of Professional Conduct in both states, as well as those being contemplated in California, now allow nonlawyers to have a partnership stake in law firms, which may dramatically change the way capital for the delivery of legal services is raised as …

Covid, Crisis And Courts, Colleen F. Shanahan, Alyx Mark, Jessica K. Steinberg, Anna E. Carpenter

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Our country is in crisis. The inequality and oppression that lies deep in the roots and is woven in the branches of our lives has been laid bare by a virus. Relentless state violence against black people has pushed protestors to the streets. We hope that the legislative and executive branches will respond with policy change for those who struggle the most among us: rental assistance, affordable housing, quality public education, comprehensive health and mental health care. We fear that the crisis will fade and we will return to more of the same. Whatever lies on the other side of …

Informal, Inquisitorial, And Accurate: An Empirical Look At A Problem-Solving Housing Court, Jessica K. Steinberg

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Substantive justice is often seen as elusive in courts dominated by low-income individuals. Complex court rules, coupled with pervasive lack of counsel, can make it difficult for the traditional adversary process to identify and redress legitimate grievances. This Article takes on the social problem of substandard housing and examines whether inquisitorial procedure has the potential to produce accurate outcomes in a tribunal dominated by the unrepresented.

Relying on in-court observations of nearly 300 hearings, and a longitudinal review of nearly 75 cases, this Article surfaces the regularized procedures utilized by a purported “problem-solving” housing court, and theorizes that the inquisitorial …

Pathway To Minority Shareholder Protection: Derivative Actions In The People's Republic Of China, Donald C. Clarke

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Using a dataset of Chinese judicial opinions arising in over fifty cases, this paper analyses the development and current implementation of shareholder derivative actions in the courts of the People’s Republic of China (“PRC”), both before and after the derivative lawsuit was explicitly authorized in the PRC’s 2006 Company Law effective January 1, 2006. In addition, we describe the very unique ecology of enterprise organization and corporate governance in modern China, and critique the formal design of the derivative action and offer reform suggestions.

We find the design of the Chinese derivative lawsuit to be, in some respects, innovative and …

Empirical Research Into The Chinese Judicial System, Donald C. Clarke

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

The last few years have seen a proliferation of programs by Western states and international agencies designed, in broad terms, to promote reforms in the Chinese judicial system. What is not clear, however, is whether there has been systematic thinking about the precise goals to be sought in these and other projects, whether these goals are appropriate, and indeed whether their achievement can even be ascertained in some measurable way. This paper is an attempt to think about what we know, what we might want to know, and what we can know about China's judicial system, broadly defined.

A key …