Courts Commons^™

Section 1983 Custom Claims And The Code Of Silence, Myriam Gilles

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Problems Concerning Litigating Custom And Practice Cases, Steve Ryals

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

Eleventh Amendment Federalism And State Sovereign Immunity Cases: Direct Effect On Section 1983?, Stephen H. Steinglass

Touro Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Big Data Jury, Andrew Guthrie Ferguson

Notre Dame Law Review

Big data technologies now exist to create algorithmically perfect jury pools matching the demographic realities of a community. Big data technologies also exist to provide litigants a wealth of personal information about potential jurors. The question remains whether these technological innovations benefit the jury system. This Article addresses the disruptive impact of big data on jury selection and the dilemma it presents to courts, lawyers, and citizens.

The Changing Odds Of The Chancery Lottery, Marianna Wonder

Fordham Law Review

Delaware is home to the majority of shareholder class action litigations related to mergers and acquisitions (M&A). These cases usually result in settlements that provide shareholders with only disclosure in exchange for a broad release of future claims, which encompasses unknown and federal security claims. The Delaware Court of Chancery must review and approve these settlements under Delaware Rule 23(e), which has been interpreted as creating a fiduciary duty for the court to protect the interests of absent shareholders. Nevertheless, Delaware has a history of routinely approving disclosure-only settlements with laxity. Recently, members of the court have begun discussing the …

Standing For (And Up To) Separation Of Powers, Kent H. Barnett

Scholarly Works

The U.S. Constitution requires federal agencies to comply with separation-of-powers (or structural) safeguards, such as by obtaining valid appointments, exercising certain limited powers, and being sufficiently subject to the President’s control. Who can best protect these safeguards? A growing number of scholars call for allowing only the political branches — Congress and the President — to defend them. These scholars would limit or end judicial review because private judicial challenges are aberrant to justiciability doctrine and lead courts to meddle in minor matters that rarely effect regulatory outcomes.

This Article defends the right of private parties to assert justiciable structural …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Dean Yelnosky's Post: United States Court Of Appeals For Veterans Claims Visits Rwu Law: 03-03-2016, Michael Yelnosky

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Nebraska Court Opinions Move Online Only, Marcia L. Dority Baker, Richard Leiter

Marvin and Virginia Schmid Law Library: Faculty Publications

Change has come to the state of Nebraska in a digital way. Beginning January 1, 2016, the official opinions of the Nebraska Supreme Court and the Nebraska Court of Appeals are available online only, a change which improves users’ ability to search these opinions. Now users can search all Nebraska Supreme Court opinions from 1871 through the present day and all Nebraska Court of Appeals opinions since its creation in 1992. Prior to this change, opinions were made available in print and the current opinions were available on the Court’s website. Both the public and legal community can access court …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Professor David Coombs's Post: Veterans Court's Decision Will Affect Rwu Law's Veterans Disability Field Clinic: 02-24-2016, David Coombs

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Class Action Myopia, Maureen Carroll

Articles

Over the past two decades, courts and commentators have often treated the class action as though it were a monolith, limiting their analysis to the particular class form that joins together a large number of claims for monetary relief This Article argues that the myopic focus on the aggregated-damages class action has led to undertheorization of the other class-action subtypes, which serve far different purposes and have far different effects, and has allowed the ongoing backlash against the aggregated-damages class action to affect the other subtypes in an undifferentiated manner. The failure to confine this backlash to its intended target …

Fortifying The Rights Of Unauthorized Immigrant Workers: Why Employee-Focused Incentives Under The Nlra Would Help End The Cycle Of Labor Rights Abuse, Caitlin E. Delaney

Journal of Law and Policy

Over the past several decades, there has been an unmistakable tension between labor law and immigration law in the United States. That tension, addressed by the Supreme Court most recently in 2001, still exists for unauthorized immigrant workers who wish to assert their labor rights under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). While the Obama Administration has made significant strides in easing the concerns that unauthorized immigrant workers may have before filing an NLRA claim, the unavailability of the back pay remedy and the uncertainty of protection from immigration authorities leave little incentive for such workers to assert their labor …

Cognitive Bias, The 'Band Of Experts,' And The Anti-Litigation Narrative, Elizabeth G. Thornburg

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

In December of 2015, yet another set of discovery rule amendments that are designed to limit discovery will go into effect. This article argues that the consistent pattern of discovery retrenchment is no accident. Rather, a combination of forces is at work. The Supreme Court consistently signals its contempt for the discovery process, and the Chief Justice’s pattern of appointments to the Rules Committees skews toward Big Law defense-side lawyers and judges appointed by Republican Presidents. In addition, longstanding corporate media campaigns have created and reinforced an anti-litigation narrative that, through the power of repetition, dominates public discourse. Further, predictable …

The Past, Present, And Future Of Predictive Coding, Matthew G. Kenney

Florida A & M University Law Review

Electronic discovery, or e-discovery, refers to the discovery of electronically stored documents and images.' Examples of e-discovery related documentation would include email, digital versions of paper documents (e.g. MS Word, PDF, Excel, and PowerPoint), social media postings, digital photos, Global Positioning System data, and content within computerized databases, etc. Digital data stored on computers, smartphones, tape drives, hard-drives, portable digital storage devices and the like would fall under the domain of e-discovery. Collecting and sorting massive amounts of electronically stored data presents both opportunities and challenges for lawyers.

For context: In 2015, electronic discovery was a $10.2 billion global industry. …

Expert Prevalence, Persuasion And Price: What Trial Participants Really Think About Experts, Andrew W. Jurs

Indiana Law Journal

By measuring how expert witnesses are actually used in court, this study offers important new data about what makes expert effective and suggests that some commonly held beliefs about experts are misguided. In doing so, the data establishes an important new baseline for measuring expert witnesses in court, updating and expanding on prior research in the field.

Will Work For Free: The Legality Of Unpaid Internships, Nicole M. Klinger

Brooklyn Journal of Corporate, Financial & Commercial Law

This Note addresses the current ambiguity in the law regarding if unpaid interns are employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Note explores relevant case law throughout the circuit courts, but primarily focuses on the Second Circuit’s recent decision in Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures. It argues that the primary benefits test created by the Second Circuit in Glatt does not adequately protect unpaid interns nor does it inform employers of the standards they need to meet in order to adopt legal unpaid internship programs. Instead, courts should adopt a clearer, more rigid test that finds an intern not …

Policing In The Era Of Permissiveness: Mitigating Misconduct Through Third-Party Standing, Julian A. Cook Iii

Brooklyn Law Review

On April 4, 2015, Walter L. Scott was driving his vehicle when he was stopped by Officer Michael T. Slager of the North Charleston, South Carolina, police department for a broken taillight. A dash cam video from the officer’s vehicle showed the two men engaged in what appeared to be a rather routine verbal exchange. Sometime after Slager returned to his vehicle, Scott exited his car and ran away from Slager, prompting the officer to pursue him on foot. After he caught up with Scott in a grassy field near a muffler establishment, a scuffle between the men ensued, purportedly …

Fashion Forward: The Need For A Proactive Approach To The Counterfeit Epidemic, Casey Tripoli

Brooklyn Journal of International Law

In the last two decades, the overall activity of the counterfeit market has expanded and risen 10,000 percent. This dramatic shift corresponds to growth of the Internet, which has unified the fascination of obtaining cheap, illegitimate goods with the efficiency of a mouse click. With the expected continued inflation of the counterfeit market comes a host of new concerns, namely, how to determine who is responsible for the distribution of these knockoffs, and who should be ordained to limit them in the marketplace. In both the United States and the European Union, however, outdated laws produce a mélange of inadequate …

Saving The Public Interest Class Action By Unpacking Theory And Doctrinal Functionality, Suzette M. Malveaux

Publications

No abstract provided.

Colorado Rule Of Evidence 502: Preserving Privilege And Work Product Protection In Discovery, Christopher B. Mueller, Ronald J. Hedges, Lino S. Lipinsky

Publications

No abstract provided.

A Matter Of Trial And Error, Or Betting On Appeals, Radek Goral

Notre Dame Law Review Reflection

Sampling from the actual portfolio of a leading third-party litigation financier, this Essay demonstrates that making systematic bets on pending appeals is a viable business model applicable to a wide range of cases. “Appellate investments” may include both consumer and commercial cases, including also public-interest actions where prevailing plaintiffs are permitted attorney’s fees—even if they themselves do not seek monetary relief. Additionally, the analyzed sample indicates that appellate funders buy both from plaintiffs and plaintiffs’ attorneys, often in the same case.

The overview of the business strategy of appellate financing contributes to a larger theme: the role and impact of …

Ordering Proof: Beyond Adversarial And Inquisitorial Trial Structures, Emily Spottswood

Scholarly Publications

In typical trials, judges and juries will find it easier to remember the proof that occurs early in the process over than what comes later. Moreover, once a fact-finder starts to form a working hypothesis to explain the facts of the case, they will be biased towards interpreting new facts in a way that confirms that theory. These two psychological mechanisms will often combine to create a strong “primacy effect,” in which the party who goes first gains a subtle, but significant, advantage over the opposing party. In this article, I propose a new method of ordering proof, designed to …

Newsroom: Judge Edward Clifton Joins Faculty, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The American Inns Of Court: Preparing Our Students For Ethical Practice, Joryn Jenkins

Akron Law Review

Despite the recognition of the merit and effectiveness of the American Inns of Court concept, and despite the rapid growth of this burgeoning movement, and despite the intrinsic involvement of over one thousand law students and of nearly one hundred law schools affiliated with Inns across the country, many legal educators are unaware of the Inns' existence, purpose, possibilities, and successes. Why should this ignorance be remedied?

New Hardware And Software Innovations (For Volumetric Modeling), A. Keith Turner

Uncovering the Hidden Resource: Groundwater Law, Hydrology, and Policy in the 1990s (Summer Conference, June 15-17)

19 pages (includes illustrations and maps).

The Call To Witness: Historical Divides, Literary Narrative, And The Power Of Oath, Nancy Cook

Marquette Law Review

A decade ago, in her book, Narrative, Authority and Law, Robin West posed these questions: How might we develop a moral sensibility with which to criticize law that is independent of the influence of law? How should we criticize law from a moral point of view, given the influence of law over our moral beliefs? What is the role of narrative in this enterprise?

The “Call to Witness” is an entreaty to look to narratives as acts of witness for a partial answer to these questions. Narratives bring to light the real conflicts underlying court cases and law, the motives …

Newsroom: Horwitz On Closed Courtroom Debate, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Resurrecting Trial By Statistics, Jay Tidmarsh

Journal Articles

“Trial by statistics” was a means by which a court could resolve a large number of aggregated claims: a court could try a random sample of claim, and extrapolate the average result to the remainder. In Wal-Mart, Inc. v. Dukes, the Supreme Court seemingly ended the practice at the federal level, thus removing from judges a tool that made mass aggregation more feasible. After examining the benefits and drawbacks of trial by statistics, this Article suggests an alternative that harnesses many of the positive features of the technique while avoiding its major difficulties. The technique is the “presumptive judgment”: a …

Trending @ Rwu Law: Professor Niki Kuckes's Post: Litigation Academy Returns, Niki Kuckes

Law School Blogs

No abstract provided.

Between The Ceiling And The Floor: Making The Case For Required Disclosure Of High-Low Agreements To Juries, Richard Lorren Jolly

University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform

Parties are increasingly using high-low agreements to limit the risks of litigation. High-low agreements are contracts in which defendants agree to pay plaintiffs a minimum recovery in return for plaintiffs’ agreement not to execute on a jury award above a maximum amount. Currently no jurisdiction requires high-low agreements to be disclosed to the jury. This Note argues that disclosure should be required. It contends that non-disclosed high-low agreements are a type of procedural contract modifying the jury’s core adjudicative function. Drawing on theories of procedural justice, it suggests that by usurping the jury’s role these agreements undermine the legitimacy of …

An Analysis Of The Legal And Practical Implications Of The Potential Increased Participation In Jury Service By Racial Minorities In The U.S. Criminal Justice System, Brian Keith Leonard

West Virginia Law Review

No abstract provided.