Courts Commons^™

The Story Of Upjohn Co. V. United States: One Man's Journey To Extend Lawyer-Client Confidentiality, And The Social Forces That Affected It, Paul F. Rothstein

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The attorney-client privilege protects information a client provides an attorney in confidence for the purpose of securing legal advice. But suppose the client is not a person but a corporation and can only speak through its agents and employees. What then are the contours of the privilege? If the corporation's attorney asks an employee for information relating to pending litigation or other legal matters, is the conversation privileged? Some courts said that no communications to a corporate attorney were privileged unless they came from members of the corporate control group, loosely those people who had authority to direct the attorney's …

Breaking The Bank: Revisiting Central Bank Of Denver After Enron And Sarbanes-Oxley, Celia Taylor

ExpressO

No abstract provided.

Making State Law In Federal Court, Benjamin C. Glassman

ExpressO

Abstract: We know from Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins that unless the Constitution or a federal statute provides the rule of decision in federal court, state law does. Contrary to the assumption of several recent commentators, however, Erie itself does not tell the federal court how to ascertain what is the law of the state, and the refrain that federal courts are to predict what the state supreme court would decide not only proves unhelpful upon examination, but also has tended to confuse the courts themselves in recent years. Yet federal courts routinely face questions of state law that admit …

Pleadings In The Age Of Settlement, Michael Moffitt

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Preventing The Subversion Of Devlin V. Scardelletti, Brian Wolfman

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Devlin v. Scardelletti that objecting class members could appeal a federal district court’s approval of a class settlement without first intervening in the litigation. Public interest lawyer Brian Wolfman says the ruling was a victory for both objectors and the integrity of class action procedure: Objectors, he argues, help keep fairness hearings fair.

But a number of courts are now ruling that Devlin only applies to non-opt-out class actions, rather than the much more numerous ones that give class members opt-out rights. In this article, Wolfman details the exact wording of the …

Shifting The Focus From The Myth Of "The Vanishing Trial" To Complex Conflict Management Systems, Or I Learned Almost Everything I Need To Know About Conflict Resolution From Marc Galanter, John M. Lande

Faculty Publications

To say that The Vanishing Trial is a myth is not to suggest that the facts or analysis in Professor Marc Galanter's seminal report on the vanishing trial are fictional or inaccurate. Indeed, he marshals a massive amount of data to show that the number of trials and the trial rates have been declining for the past four decades, particularly in the federal courts. The report documents an apparent paradox: the proportion of cases going to trial has dropped sharply during the past forty years despite substantial increases in many other legal indicators including the number of lawyers, the number …

Book Review: Forensic Linguistics, Dru Stevenson

ExpressO

Review of John Gibbons' text "Forensic Linguistics"

"Who's The Boss?": An Analytical And Practical Approach To Determine The "Employer" In A Defined Contribution Qualified Retirement Plan, 38 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1011 (2005), Megan Mccoy

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Preventing "You've Got Mail"™ From Meaning "You've Been Served": How Service Of Process By E-Mail Does Not Meet Constitutional Procedure Due Process Requirements, 38 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1121 (2005), Matthew R. Schreck

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Adjudicating International Trade Cases At The U.S. Commerce Department: Endless Remand Or Balanced Resolve?, 39 J. Marshall L. Rev. 59 (2005), Elizabeth C. Seastrum, Matthew D. Walden

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Patients Beware: Preemption Of Common Law Claims Under The Medical Device Amendments, 39 J. Marshall L. Rev. 75 (2005), Michael P. Dinatale

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

American Courts Are Drowning In The "Gene Pool": Excavating The Slippery Slope Mechanisms Behind Judicial Endorsement Of Dna Databases, 39 J. Marshall L. Rev. 115 (2005), Meghan Riley

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Public Use Or Experimental Use: Are Clinical Trials Susceptible To Another Attack Similar To That In Smithkline Beecham Corp. V. Apotex Corp., 39 J. Marshall L. Rev. 149 (2005), Nimalka Wickramasekera

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Statutes Of Limitations: A Policy Analysis In The Context Of Reparations Litigation, Suzette M. Malveaux

Publications

This article discusses the underlying policy rationales for statutes of limitations and their exceptions, as demonstrated by Supreme Court precedents. This article explores limitations law in the context of a case brought by African-American survivors of the Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 who sought restitution from the local government for its participation in one of the worst race riots in American history, in violation of their constitutional and federal civil rights. Using the Tulsa case as an exemplar, this article analyzes the propriety of the case’s dismissal as time-barred, and contends that this outcome was unwarranted under precedents and failed …

Constitutional Accommodation And The Rule(S) Of Courts, Lorne Sossin

Articles & Book Chapters

Constitutional authority for the development and implementation of the rules of court lies with both the legislature, by its statutory power, and the judiciary, by the constitutional principles of judicial independence. The court rules in question here are those that govern court accessibility as well as the roles and responsibilities of parties in civil litigation. The three existing models of rule-making are court-led, where a majority of government officials, and collaborative, which lacks an evident majority of either. These rule-making bodies do not control court fees, the executive does, but in a system with any model, the judiciary always has …

Unconstitutional Courses, Frederic M. Bloom

Publications

By now, we almost expect Congress to fail. Nearly every time the federal courts announce a controversial decision, Congress issues a call to rein in "runaway" federal judges. And nearly every time Congress makes a "jurisdiction-stripping" threat, it comes to nothing.

But if Congress's threats possess little fire, we have still been distracted by their smoke. This Article argues that Congress's noisy calls have obscured another potent threat to the "judicial Power": the Supreme Court itself. On occasion, this Article asserts, the Court reshapes and abuses the "judicial Power"--not through bold pronouncements or obvious doctrinal revisions, but through something more …

A Primer On The Doctrine Of Federal Sovereign Immunity, Gregory C. Sisk

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

The Supreme Court, Democracy And Institutional Reform Litigation, Ross Sandler, David Schoenbrod

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Public Availability Or Practical Obscurity: The Debate Over Public Access To Court Records On The Internet, Arminda Bradford Bepko

NYLS Law Review

No abstract provided.

Foreign Judgments At Common Law: Rethinking The Enforcement Rules, Tanya J. Monestier

Journal Articles

England and Canada have adopted divergent approaches to the enforcement of foreign civil and commercial judgments. An English court will only enforce a foreign judgment where the defendant submitted to the junsdiction of the foreign court, or was present in the foreign jurisdiction when served with process. This position. while protecting domestic defendants, is outdated and does little to further the objectives underpinning judgment enforcement- Canadian courts, by contrast, have been far more liberal than their English counterparts, enforcing foreign judgments in cases where there is a "real and substantial connection" between the dispute and the judgment forum. While this …

Crawford V. Washington: Encouraging And Ensuring The Confrontation Of Witness, Robert P. Mosteller

University of Richmond Law Review

No abstract provided.

Procedural Due Process Aspects Of District Of Columbia Eviction Procedures, Lynn E. Cunningham

ExpressO

The District of Columbia Superior Court, Landlord and Tenant Branch, administers the local Forcible Entry and Detainer statute in a manner that arguably violates standards of adequate notice under the Due Process Clause.

Electronic Discovery Sanctions In The Twenty-First Century, Shira A. Scheindlin, Kachana Wangkeo

Michigan Telecommunications & Technology Law Review

At the federal level, the Civil Rules Advisory Committee has responded to the "unique and necessary feature of computer systems--the automatic recycling, overwriting, and alteration of electronically stored information"--with a proposed amendment to Rule 37. The proposed Rule 37(f) would shield litigants from sanctions for the destruction of electronic data if the party "took reasonable steps to preserve the information after it knew or should have known the information was discoverable in the action" and "the failure resulted from the loss of the information because of the routine operation of the party's electronic information system." The safe harbor provision would …

Minnesota's Pro Bono Appellate Program: A Simple Approach That Achieves Important Objectives, Thomas H. Boyd

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

How Like A Winter? The Plight Of Absent Class Members Denied Adequate Representation, Susan P. Koniak

Faculty Scholarship

Class actions assume absent class members. ² Notices in class actions tell class members that they need not show up in the courthouse, although they may if they choose.³ Class members are told that class counsel and the named class representatives will look out for them, although if they choose to hire their own lawyer, she may appear on their behalf.⁴ They are also routinely told that once the decision in the class action becomes final they will be bound by it, losing any and all right to protest the resolution of their claims by the class action …

The Dilution Effect: Federalization, Fair Cross-Sections, And The Concept Of Community, Laura G. Dooley

ExpressO

The question of the relevant community from which a fair cross-section of jurors should be drawn has received little theoretical attention. This article seeks to fill that gap by using communitarian and postmodern theory to give content to the idea of "community" in the fair cross-section context. This analysis is timely and has grave practical importance, given that the federal government is increasingly assuming the prosecution of crime previously dealt with at the state level. This "federalization" of criminal enforcement has the second-order effect of changing the "community" from which criminal juries will be drawn, particularly in urban areas surrounded …

Appellate Practice And Procedure, K. Todd Butler

Mercer Law Review

This Article reviews cases decided in 2003 by the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit that have the greatest bearing on issues of federal appellate procedure for attorneys practicing in the Eleventh Circuit. Topics reviewed include parties' designation of matters appealed in the Notice of Appeal; parties' actions taken during or prior to trial to preserve issues for appeal; the interlocutory jurisdiction of appellate courts; the lack of appellate jurisdiction resulting from the mootness of issues appealed; and the invited error and judicial estoppel rules.

Are You Experienced?: Examining The Need For Specialized Ethics Rules In Patent Litigation, Benjamin J. Sodey

ExpressO

Any attorney licensed to practice before a federal district court, regardless or his or her area of specialization, may file a patent infringement suit on behalf of a client in that court. The possibility exists, therefore, for an attorney having little or no intellectual property experience to represent clients in complex patent litigation matters. Due to this, infringement defendants and their counsel may find themselves on the receiving end of a dubious patent claim brought by attorneys lacking patent law experience. This article discusses whether the existing rules governing attorney conduct, such as professional responsibility, procedural, or statutory rules, are …

The Market For Justice, The "Litigation Explosion," And The "Verdict Bubble": A Closer Look At Vanishing Trials, Frederic Nelson Smalkin, Frederic Nelson Chancellor Smalkin

ExpressO

This article takes a fresh look at the increasingly discussed topic of the scarcity of civil cases reaching trial in the Article III system. The number of cases tried declined by more than one-fourth in the decade from 1989-1999, and the decline continued at about the same rate to the end of the latest year for which statistics are available, 2002, while ADR (particularly arbitrations) skyrocketed.

The authors examine the history of competing English courts (particularly Common Pleas and King's Bench) for signs that, in fact, market competition can arise among dispute-resolving bodies. They also apply economic analysis to the …

The Province Of The Judiciary, 37 J. Marshall L. Rev. 325 (2004), William E. Nelson

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.