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Full-Text Articles in Law
Mass Arbitration, J. Maria Glover
Mass Arbitration, J. Maria Glover
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
For decades, the class action has been in the crosshairs of defense-side procedural warfare. Repeated attacks on the class action by the defense bar, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other defense-side interest groups have been overwhelmingly successful. None proved more successful than the “arbitration revolution”—a forty- year campaign to eliminate class actions through forced arbitration provisions in private contracts. The effects for civil justice have been profound. Scores of claims vanished from the civil justice landscape—claims concerning civil rights, wage theft, sexual harassment, and consumer fraud. The effects for social justice, racial justice, gender justice, and economic justice were …
Communitarianism And The Roberts Court: The Sequel, Robert M. Ackerman, Adam G. Winn
Communitarianism And The Roberts Court: The Sequel, Robert M. Ackerman, Adam G. Winn
Law Faculty Research Publications
No abstract provided.
Lafler And Frye: A New Constitutional Standard For Negotiation, Rishi Batra
Lafler And Frye: A New Constitutional Standard For Negotiation, Rishi Batra
Faculty Articles
The Sixth Amendment guarantees "[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense." In 1984, the Supreme Court in Strickland v. Washington established the standard for ineffective assistance of counsel that is a violation of this right. In a pair of decisions handed down in 2012, Lafler v. Cooper and Missouri v. Frye the Supreme Court extended the holding in Strickland to cover ineffective assistance by defense counsel in the plea-bargaining phase. Recognizing that pleas account for ninety-five percent of all criminal convictions, the court stated that "the negotiation …
What Will We Lose If The Trial Vanishes?, Robert P. Burns
What Will We Lose If The Trial Vanishes?, Robert P. Burns
Faculty Working Papers
The number of trials continues to decline andfederal civil trials have almost completely disappeared. This essay attempts to address the significance of this loss, to answer the obvious question, "So what?" It argues against taking a resigned or complacent attitude toward an important problem for our public culture. It presents a short description of the trial's internal structure, recounts different sorts of explanations, and offers an inventory of the kinds of wounds this development would inflict.
The Dignity, Rights, And Responsibilities Of The Jury: On The Structure Of Normative Argument, Robert P. Burns
The Dignity, Rights, And Responsibilities Of The Jury: On The Structure Of Normative Argument, Robert P. Burns
Faculty Working Papers
Many theorists follow an inevitably circular method in evaluating legal institutions and practices. "Considered judgments of justice" embedded in practices and institutions in which we have a high level of confidence can serve as partial evidence for the principles with which they are consistent, principles that can then have broader implications. Conversely, principles that we have good reason to embrace can serve as partial justification for institutions and practices with which they are consistent. This is the heart of Rawls' notion of "reflective equilibrium," where we "work at both ends" to justify institutions, practices, and principles. This method is applicable …
Criminal Alternative Dispute Resolution: Restoring Justice, Respecting Responsibility, And Renewing Public Norms, Maggie T. Grace
Criminal Alternative Dispute Resolution: Restoring Justice, Respecting Responsibility, And Renewing Public Norms, Maggie T. Grace
Student Articles and Papers
This Article explores theoretical concerns underlying contemporary appeals to Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") in the criminal justice system. Analyzing literature on free will and responsibility and leading work on transitional justice, I argue that a restorative justice approach to criminal ADR better accommodates the realities of social conditions that correlate with criminality while respecting deeply-held concepts of responsibility. I further argue that this approach provides a useful response to critics, such as Owen Fiss, who argue that ADR privatizes disputes, thereby failing to produce and reinforce essential public norms.
The Death Of The American Trial, Robert P. Burns
The Death Of The American Trial, Robert P. Burns
Faculty Working Papers
This short essay is a summary of my assessment of the meaning of the "vanishing trial" phenomenon. It addresses the obvious question: "So what?" It first briefly reviews the evidence of the trial's decline. It then sets out the steps necessary to understand the political and social signficance of our vastly reducing the trial's importance among our modes of social ordering. The essay serves as the Introduction to a book, The Death of the American Trial, soon to be published by the University of Chicago Press.
Due Process And Punitive Damages: The Error Of Federal Excessiveness Jurisprudence, A. Benjamin Spencer
Due Process And Punitive Damages: The Error Of Federal Excessiveness Jurisprudence, A. Benjamin Spencer
Faculty Publications
The Supreme Court, in a line of several cases over the past decade, has established a rigorous federal constitutional excessiveness review for punitive damages awards based on the Due Process Clause. As a matter of substantive due process, says the Court, punitive awards must be evaluated by three "guideposts" set forth in BMW of North America v. Gore: the degree of reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct, the ratio between punitive and compensatory damages, and a comparison of the amount of punitive damages to any "civil or criminal penalties that could be imposed for comparable misconduct." Following up on this pronouncement …
Mothers And Fathers Of Invention: The Intellectual Founders Of Adr, Carrie Menkel-Meadow
Mothers And Fathers Of Invention: The Intellectual Founders Of Adr, Carrie Menkel-Meadow
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
When we think of the "founding" of the ADR movement (particularly, but not exclusively, in law), from when do we date it? Whom do we think of as our leaders? Many of us think of Frank Sander and the "multi-door courthouse" suggested by his famous paper, delivered at the Pound Conference on the Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice in 1976. For others, the publication of Roger Fisher and William Ury's "Getting to Yes," signaled an interest in a changed paradigm for engaging in legal negotiations. Some may associate ADR's nascency with early practical efforts to institutionalize …
Protecting Unionized Employees Against Discrimination: The Fourth Circuit's Misinterpretation Of Supreme Court Precedent, Ann C. Hodges
Protecting Unionized Employees Against Discrimination: The Fourth Circuit's Misinterpretation Of Supreme Court Precedent, Ann C. Hodges
Law Faculty Publications
This article will first review the Supreme Court's arbitration jurisprudence, concentrating on labor and employment law cases. Next, the article will analyze the cases involving arbitration under collective bargaining agreements decided by the courts of appeals subsequent to Gilmer. The article will then evaluate the two different approaches of the circuit courts in light of the law relating to collective bargaining and union representation. Finally, the article will review alternative methods of protecting employee rights to determine whether unions can preserve employees' statutory rights under the rule of the Fourth Circuit. The article concludes that the Supreme Court should …
Tort Law As A Comparative Institution, Claire Oakes Finkelstein
Tort Law As A Comparative Institution, Claire Oakes Finkelstein
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Reconsidering The Employment Contract Exclusion In Section 1 Of The Federal Arbitration Act: Correcting The Judiciary's Failure Of Statutory Vision, Jeffrey W. Stempel
Reconsidering The Employment Contract Exclusion In Section 1 Of The Federal Arbitration Act: Correcting The Judiciary's Failure Of Statutory Vision, Jeffrey W. Stempel
Scholarly Works
The Federal Arbitration Act (the Act), seeks to eliminate centuries of perceived judicial hostility toward arbitration agreements. The Act made written arbitration agreements involving interstate commerce specifically enforceable. It also provided a procedural structure for enforcing awards, which were protected through deferential judicial review. The Act intended to have a wide reach, employing a broad definition of commerce that has presumably grown in breadth along with the expansion of judicial notions of commerce. Although courts applied the Act in tentative and cautious fashion until the 1960's, arbitration gained momentum during the 1970's and the 1980's. Despite growing judicial enthusiasm for …
Interjurisdictional Preclusion, Full Faith And Credit And Federal Common Law: A General Approach, Stephen B. Burbank
Interjurisdictional Preclusion, Full Faith And Credit And Federal Common Law: A General Approach, Stephen B. Burbank
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.
Interjurisdictional Preclusion And Federal Common Law: Toward A General Approach, Stephen B. Burbank
Interjurisdictional Preclusion And Federal Common Law: Toward A General Approach, Stephen B. Burbank
All Faculty Scholarship
No abstract provided.