Civil Law Commons^™

Examining The Real Demand For Legal Services, Herbert M. Kritzer

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Legal needs are real, but can also be virtually open-ended. Studies tell us that 85% of the civil legal needs of low income persons are currently not being met but we have no idea as to what portion of that 85% legal assistance would meaningfully help to resolve those needs, or how the cost of providing that assistance compares to the benefit that would be generated. This article examines extant studies of legal needs, and concludes that there is a need for baseline data to enable us to assess the degree of legal need that takes into account the range …

Nothing For Something? Denying Legal Assistance To Those Compelled To Participate In Adr Proceedings, Stephan Landsman

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The traditional view of the courts in their handling of unrepresented litigants has been that those who proceed pro se must look out for themselves and that there is no constitutional right to receive personal instruction from the trial judge on courtroom procedure. The opposing view, which has received increasing support, is that courts have a duty to ensure that pro se litigants do not lose their right to a hearing on the merits of their claim due to ignorance of technical procedural requirements. This Article explores the treatment of unrepresented litigants in ADR (alternative dispute resolution) settings, contends that …

Access To Justice In A World Without Lawyers: Evidence From Texas Bodily Injury Claims, Charles Silver, David A. Hyman

Fordham Urban Law Journal

Will tort reform capping contingency fees limit plaintiffs' ability to recover for their injuries? If self-representation is a viable option, contingency fees may have less of an impact on access than one might otherwise expect. Conversely, if tort recoveries flow only or mostly to plaintiffs who either actually hire lawyers or can credibly threaten to do so, caps on contingency fees may make it difficult or impossible for many victims to obtain justice. This article explores the issue by looking at patterns of representation among claimants who received payments for bodily injury in Texas during 1988-2005. Over an extended period …

Introduction: 2008 Aba Section Of Litigation Access To Justice Symposium, Robert L. Rothman

Fordham Urban Law Journal

The 2008 ABA Section of Litigation conducted a symposium designed to explore the challenges inherent in creation of a civil right to counsel and to generate critical though, dialogue, and scholarship on the subject.

Twenty-Eight Words: Enforcing Corporate Fiduciary Duties Through Criminal Prosecution Of Honest Services Fraud, Lisa L. Casey

Journal Articles

This article examines the federal government's growing use of 18 U.S.C. § 1346 to prosecute public company executives for breaching their fiduciary duties. Section 1346 is a controversial but under-examined statute making it a felony to engage in a scheme "to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services." Although enacted by Congress over twenty years ago, the Supreme Court repeatedly declined to review the statute, until now. In 2009, Justice Antonin Scalia pointed to the numerous interpretive questions dividing the federal appellate courts and proclaimed that it was "quite irresponsible" to let the "current chaos prevail." Since then, …

Regulating Offensiveness: Snyder V. Phelps, Emotion, And The First Amendment, Christina E. Wells

Faculty Publications

In its upcoming term, the Court will decide in Snyder v. Phelps whether Albert Snyder can sue the Reverend Fred Phelps and other members of the Westboro Baptist Church for invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress for protesting near his son’s funeral. Those arguing in favor of tort liability claim that the Phelps’ speech during a time of mourning and vulnerability is especially outrageous and injurious and that the First Amendment allows such regulation. Their arguments, however, effectively rely on the offensiveness of the Phelps’ message rather than on any external indicia of harm, such as noisy …

Representation In Mediation: What We Know From Empirical Research, Roselle L. Wissler

Fordham Urban Law Journal

This Article first describes the proportion of unrepresented parties in mediation and the policies and practices regarding representation in different mediation contexts. The core of the Article examines the empirical findings on the effect of representation on several dimensions of the mediation process, including the effect on preparation for mediation, party perceptions of the fairness of the process and pressures to settle, the extent of party "voice" and participation in mediation, and the tone of the session. In addition, the Article examines the effect of representation on mediation outcomes, including the likelihood of settlement and the fairness of agreements reached. …

Organizations Matter: They Are Institutions, After All, John Linarelli

Scholarly Works

Judge Posner (2010) offers a substantial agenda for organization economics. He advises us on how organization economics can shed substantial light on some of the most pressing social problems of the day. I comment on two of the areas he selects for discussion and offer some comments on the relationship of organization economics to new institutional economics. Judge Posner surely is right to argue that organization economics can help us understand the failures of corporate governance in regulating executive pay. Moreover, with additional and more institutionally nuanced theorizing, organizational economics should further our understanding of the work of judiciaries in …

Reply: Clawback To The Future, Miriam A. Cherry, Jarrod Wong

All Faculty Scholarship

In an earlier article also available on Scholarship Commons, Clawbacks: Prospective Contract Measures in an Era of Excessive Executive Compensation and Ponzi Schemes, Minnesota Law Review, Vol. 94, p. 368, 2009, Professors Miriam Cherry and Jarrod Wong set out an initial description and analysis of contractual clawback provisions. In this Reply, Profs. Cherry and Wong address three aspects of Michael Macchiarola's Response: its application of the clawback doctrine to the recoupment of executive compensation; the criticism that the clawbacks doctrine introduces latent subjectivity into contractual analysis; and the apparent operational difficulties in implementing clawbacks.

Civil Gideon: The Poor Man's Fight, Lee Shevell

Public Interest Law Reporter

No abstract provided.

Al-Iqrar Fi Ithbat Al-Da`Wa Fi Al-Qadaya Al-Madinah : Dirasah Muqaranah Bayna Al-Qanun Al-Madani Al-Irani Wa-Al-Madhahib Al-Khamsah., Ghotbaddin Zahedian

Student Works (2010-2019)

The dissertation is a comparison study between madhahib fiqhiyyah (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafe'i, Hanbali, Ja’fari) and the Iranian Civil Code with regards to confession of patient, bankrupt, infant, fool, and the confession of kinship. The study is theoretical, aiming at evaluating the influence of the Ja’fari’s and another four schools of jurisprudence (Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali) on the Iranian Civil Code. In addition, the study attempts to identify the similarities and differences between the four schools of Sunni and Shiah Ja’fari in confession in civil cases. It has been done by comparing civil issues between the four schools of Ahl …

Torts As Wrongs, John C.P. Goldberg, Benjamin C. Zipursky

Faculty Scholarship

Torts scholars hold different views on why tort law shifts costs from plaintiffs to defendants. Some invoke notions of justice, some efficiency, and some compensation. Nearly all seem to agree, however, that tort law is about the allocation of losses. This Article challenges the widespread embrace of loss-based accounts as fundamentally misguided. It is wrongs not losses that lie at the foundation of tort law. Tort suits are about affording plaintiffs an avenue of civil recourse against those who have wronged them. Although torts were once routinely understood as wrongs, since Holmes’s time, tort scholars have tended to suppose that …

Press Freedom In Indonesia: A Case Of Draconian Laws, Statutory Misinterpretation, But Still One Of The Freest In Southeast Asia, Nono Anwar Makarim

Journal of Civil Law Studies

No abstract provided.

The Principle Of Proportionality: The Challenges Of Human Rights, Juan Cianciardo

Journal of Civil Law Studies

The purpose of the present paper can be synthesized in the following points: a) to expose the concept of the principle of proportionality in its broadest sense and its different components or dimensions; b) to draw the attention to an approach which is usually not studied by authors, that is, the fact that the application of the principle is not enough to guarantee the supremacy of the human rights, at least in some cases; c) lastly, to point out those requirements that could protect proportionality from the risk mentioned in b).

The Shadow Of State Secrets, Laura K. Donohue

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The shadow of state secrets casts itself longer than previously acknowledged. Between 2001 and 2009 the government asserted state secrets in more than 100 cases, while in scores more litigants appealed to the doctrine in anticipation of government intervention. Contractor cases ranged from breach of contract, patent disputes, and trade secrets, to fraud and employment termination. Wrongful death, personal injury, and negligence suits kept pace, extending beyond product liability to include infrastructure and services, as well as conduct of war. In excess of fifty telecommunications suits linked to the NSA warrantless wiretapping program emerged 2006-2009, with the government acting, variously, …

Is That Really Me?: Social Networking And The Right Of Publicity, Rachel A. Purcell

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

Social networking websites are ubiquitous in modern culture and popular with people of all ages and demographics. Operators of this kind of site, which consist largely of third party generated content, are immune from many types of civil liability for third party postings under the Communications Decency Act. However, the Act does not immunize these providers from intellectual property right infringements. Recent court decisions suggest that this immunity exception may extend not only to federal intellectual property rights, but state intellectual property rights like the right of publicity. This Note will evaluate the emerging circuit split regarding state intellectual property …

The Easy Case For Products Liability: A Response To Polinsky & Shavell, Benjamin C. Zipursky, John C.P. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

In their article “The Uneasy Case for Product Liability,” Professors Polinsky and Shavell assert the extraordinary claim that there should be no tort liability - none at all - for injuries caused by widely-sold products. In particular, they claim to have found convincing evidence that the threat of tort liability creates no additional incentives to safety beyond those already provided by regulatory agencies and market forces, and that tort compensation adds little or no benefit to injury victims beyond the compensation already provided by various forms of insurance. In this response, we explain that, even on its own narrow terms, …

Foundations For A Revival Of The Case Method In Civil Law Education, Fernando M. Toller

Journal of Civil Law Studies

The article explores the origins, foundations, and present development of the case method in the Civil Law tradition. It supports the idea that, properly defined, this methodology is very suitable for law, and not only in Common Law jurisdictions, but also the Civil Law and is even more appropriate in Continental law schools. There are indeed some undisputable common roots between Common Law and Civil Law regarding this pedagogical tool.

The misunderstandings and skepticism about the usability of this method in Civil Law education are challenged and answered. The article proves that the case method is a serious and useful …

The Bankruptcy Hegemon: Section 524(A) And Its Effect On State And Federal Comity, Benjamin Margulis

Cardozo Law Review

No abstract provided.

Saving Lives Through Punitive Damages, W. Kip Viscusi, Joni Hersch

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article proposes that the value of statistical life ("VSL ") be used to set the total damages amount needed for deterrence when punitive damages are warranted in wrongful death cases. The appropriate level of total damages should be achieved by adjusting the value of punitive damages. Compensatory damages should not be distorted to establish the total damages level needed for efficient deterrence. Attempts to introduce hedonic damages as a compensatory damages component, and proposals to use the VSL on a routine basis when setting compensatory damages awards, are misguided and will undermine the insurance and compensation functions of compensatory …

A Generation Of Racketeers? Eliminating Civil Rico Liability For Copyright Infringement, Julie L. Ross

Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment & Technology Law

This article addresses questions raised in recent years by the increasingly severe penalties for copyright infringement, focusing on potential civil RICO liability as illustrated by a hypothetical peer-to-peer file-sharing example. Because civil litigation has been, by a wide margin, the favored means for pursuing copyright violators, the criminal copyright infringement statute remains largely untested, and the few cases that address its provisions offer conflicting interpretations. Now that RICO penalties are available in civil copyright infringement cases, courts faced with resolving the ambiguities in the application of the criminal copyright infringement provisions will need to reconcile divergent policies. To effectuate its …

A Common Lawyer’S Perspective On The European Perspective On Punitive Damages, Michael Wells

Scholarly Works

Punitive damages are generally available in common law jurisdictions, but are disfavored in civil law systems. This paper argues that the main reasons for the difference are historical and cultural. Roman law and the French Revolution heavily influenced the civil law. Civilians were taught that legal development comes from the top down. They learned to treat law as a system of general principles and to resist anomalies. They found it relatively easy to reject the intrusion of criminal themes into private law. The common law developed one case at a time, with no particular emphasis on systematic coherence. It was …

Cover, Masthead & Contents

Journal of Civil Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Foreword, Olivier Moréteau

Journal of Civil Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Don Saúl Litvinoff (1925-2010) , Agustín Parise, Julio Romañach Jr.

Journal of Civil Law Studies

No abstract provided.

The Vienna Sales Convention (Cisg) Between Civil And Common Law – Best Of All Worlds?, Ulrich Magnus

Journal of Civil Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Legal Theory And The Variety Of Legal Cultures, Sheldon Leader

Journal of Civil Law Studies

This essay begins with a consideration of two anxieties about courts that are common to the civil and common law traditions: a worry about illegitimate judicial law making, and a worry about judicial bias. It will then move to the contribution legal theories might make in dealing with these shared anxieties, with a focus on a position that draws on the two largest contestants: natural law and legal positivism. It will end with an indication of the further distance that theory needs to take us before these worries about the judiciary can be effectively tackled.

The Reform Of Legal Education In China And Japan: Shifting From The Continental To The American Model, Xiangshun Ding

Journal of Civil Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Common Law, Civil Law, And The Challenge From Federalism, Santiago Legarre

Journal of Civil Law Studies

No abstract provided.

An Introduction To Contamination, Olivier Moréteau

Journal of Civil Law Studies

No abstract provided.