Courts Commons^™

Mass Digitization Of Chinese Court Decisions: How To Use Text As Data In The Field Of Chinese Law, Benjamin L. Liebman, Margaret Roberts, Rachel E. Stern, Alice Z. Wang

Faculty Scholarship

Since 2014, Chinese courts have placed tens of millions of court judgments online. We analyze the promise and pitfalls of using this new data source, highlighting takeaways for readers facing similar issues using other collections of legal texts. Drawing on 1,058,986 documents from Henan Province, we identify problems with missing data and call on scholars to treat variation in court disclosure rates as an urgent research question. We also outline strategies for learning from a corpus that is vast and incomplete. Using a topic model of administrative litigation in Henan, we complicate conventional wisdom that administrative lawsuits are an extension …

Dispute Resolution In Pandemic Circumstances, George A. Bermann

Faculty Scholarship

The peaceful resolution of disputes is among the most important earmarks of a regime attached to the rule of law. Even in countries in which, for one reason or another, courts do not work especially well, civil peace is of paramount importance. The absence of effective institutions for the administration of justice between and among private parties would spell a high degree of social disorder.

Even in the absence of a crisis such as we are experiencing, justice systems face a number of challenges in this day and age. Does a jurisdiction have a sufficient number of persons qualified to …

Beholding Law: Amadeo On The Argentine Constitution, Christina D. Ponsa-Kraus, Erin F. Delaney

Faculty Scholarship

This essay introduces an online edition of Santos P. Amadeo’s Argentine Constitutional Law to be published by the Academia Puertorriqueña de Jurisprudencia y Legislación. Tracing the book to its origins in a paper Amadeo wrote for a seminar in comparative constitutional law at Columbia Law School in the 1930s, we discuss the intellectual context that gave rise to the book and assess its author’s methodological choices. We then examine one particular substantive choice: Whereas the paper specifically draws attention to the importance of understanding every form of political subdivision in a federalist system – identifying Argentina’s as the provinces, the …

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

Faculty Scholarship

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 …

Covid-19 And The Law: Elections, Richard Briffault

Faculty Scholarship

With one Supreme Court decision, lower federal and state court decisions, pending litigation, and proposals around the country for major changes in how elections are conducted, COVID-19 has already had and likely will continue to have a significant impact on election law.

The discussion that follows proceeds in two parts. The first addresses the initial consequences of COVID-19 as an electoral emergency. Voters were due to go to the polls in states around the country just as the pandemic was gathering force and governors and mayors were calling on people to stay at home and avoid large gatherings – which, …

Child Welfare And Covid-19: An Unexpected Opportunity For Systemic Change, Jane M. Spinak

Faculty Scholarship

The COVID-19 pandemic has already wrecked greater havoc in poor neighborhoods of color, where pre-existing conditions exacerbate the disease’s spread. Crowded housing and homelessness, less access to health care and insurance, and underlying health conditions are all factors that worsen the chances of remaining healthy.Workers desperate for income continue to work without sufficient protective measures, moving in and out of these neighborhoods, putting themselves and their families at risk. During periods of greater disruption, tensions are heightened and violence more prevalent. Already some experts are warning of an onslaught of child maltreatment cases, citing earlier examples of spikes in foster …

Measuring The Impact Of Access To Justice Programs: An Assessment Tool For Funders And Policymakers, Thomas M. Clarke, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

Across the fifty states and the nation, many organizations have implemented a variety of programs to reduce the access-to-justice gap. The result is a widely varying patchwork of capabilities that provide different services and solutions in very different amounts that do not necessarily or even usually align with the problems that the target populations face. This paper proposes more of an “engineering” approach by introducing an analytical tool for organizations working on closing the access gap to estimate the potential impact of proposed solutions.

The tool can be used to: 1) assess the magnitude of an access problem that could …

The Final Frontier: Are Class Action Waivers In Broker-Dealer Employment Agreements Enforceable?, Jill I. Gross

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

How would a court resolve a broker-dealer's action to enforce its class action waiver, which would require the court to disregard FINRA Rule 13204? The Supreme Court has identified one exception to the FAA's mandate: if a “contrary congressional command” displaces the FAA. Thus far, the Court has not had occasion to examine whether a class action waiver in a broker-dealer's employment agreement with an employee is enforceable under this exception. While the Court seems very supportive of these waivers, the securities industry is different. Securities arbitration is heavily regulated, and pronouncements by the SEC--when exercising power expressly delegated to …

Sovereign Immunity, The Au, And The Icc: Legitimacy Undermined, Christa-Gaye Kerr

Michigan Journal of International Law

This note examines how the International Criminal Court’s indictment of African leaders has led to a breakdown in the relationship between the Court and the African Union and offers solutions to repair this relationship. In particular, the ICC’s blanket rejection of sovereign immunity and its close relationship with the UNSC delegitimize the Court. As an organization that relies on the cooperation of states across the world, this is something the Court cannot afford. The ICC’s decade-long fight with the African Union over the disproportionate number of charges leveled against African nationals has weakened its stature with African states. This has …

Rehabilitating Our Immigration System With The Rehabilitation Act: Rejecting Video Teleconferencing And Presumptively Requiring In-Person Court Appearances As A Reasonable Accommodation For Mentally Incompetent Detainees, Cassandra H. Chee

American University Law Review

In recent years, the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), the office of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) responsible for adjudicating immigration cases, has increasingly relied on the use of video teleconferencing (VTC) in immigration court proceedings, as opposed to in-person court appearances. Citing VTC as an efficient and effective way to conduct hearings and manage its large docket backlog, EOIR has installed VTC units at its headquarters and at nearly all immigration courts, and the agency’s use of VTC has risen exponentially under the Trump Administration. Yet, VTC has been proven to harm immigration judges’ abilities to assess …

"Downright Indifference": Examining Unpublished Decisions In The Federal Courts Of Appeals, Merritt E. Mcalister

UF Law Faculty Publications

Nearly 90 percent of the work of the federal courts of appeals looks nothing like the opinions law students read in casebooks. Over the last fifty years, the so-called “unpublished decision” has overtaken the federal appellate courts in response to a caseload volume “crisis.” These are often short, perfunctory decisions that make no law; they are, one federal judge said, “not safe for human consumption.” The creation of the inferior unpublished decision also has created an inferior track of appellate justice for a class of appellants: indigent litigants. The federal appellate courts routinely shunt indigent appeals to a second-tier appellate …

Reevaluating Politicized Identity & Notions Of An American Political Community In The Legal & Political Process, Marvin L. Astrada Jd, Phd

Indiana Journal of Law and Social Equality

No abstract provided.

The Six-Month List And The Unintended Consequences Of Judicial Accountibility, Miguel F. P. De Figueiredo, Alexandra D. Lahav, Peter Siegelman

Cornell Law Review

A little-known mechanism instituted to improve judicial accountability and speed up the work of the federal judiciary has led to unintended consequences, many of them unfortunate. Federal district court judges are subject to a soft deadline known as the Six-Month List (the List). By law, every judge's backlog (cases older than three years and motions pending more than six months) is made public twice a year. Because judges have life tenure and fixed salaries, a mere reporting requirement should not influence their behavior. But it does. Using the complete record of all federal civil cases between 1980 and 2017 and …

The Pursuit Of Comprehensive Education Funding Reform Via Litigation, Lisa Scruggs

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Panel Discussion: The Right To Education: With Liberty, Justice, And Education For All?

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Legal Risks Of Adversarial Machine Learning Research, Ram Shankar Siva Kumar, Jonathon Penney, Bruce Schneier, Kendra Albert

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Adversarial machine learning is the systematic study of how motivated adversaries can compromise the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of machine learning (ML) systems through targeted or blanket attacks. The problem of attacking ML systems is so prevalent that CERT, the federally funded research and development center tasked with studying attacks, issued a broad vulnerability note on how most ML classifiers are vulnerable to adversarial manipulation. Google, IBM, Facebook, and Microsoft have committed to investing in securing machine learning systems. The US and EU are likewise putting security and safety of AI systems as a top priority.

Now, research on adversarial …

Nil/Tu,O Child And Family Services Society V. B.C. Government And Service Employees’ Union’ And Communications, Energy And Paperworkers Union Of Canada V. Native Child And Family Services Of Toronto, Naiomi Metallic

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In NIL/TU,O and Native Child, the Supreme Court of Canada held that unions applying for certification to represent employees of Indigenous-run child and family agencies ought to be certified under provincial labour relations legislation. The majority in both cases applied a presumptive rule that labour relations are generally provincial matters. This presumption was not displaced by the fact that both agencies were Indigenous-run organizations. The Indigenous nature of the organizations, their clientele, staff, and governance, or their own preferences for labour regimes made no difference to the Court’s analysis.

Held: Appeals Allowed.

1.

The appeals should be allowed. Treating Indigenous …

Judicial Credibility, Bert I. Huang

Faculty Scholarship

Do people believe a federal court when it rules against the government? And does such judicial credibility depend on the perceived political affiliation of the judge? This study presents a survey experiment addressing these questions, based on a set of recent cases in which both a judge appointed by President George W. Bush and a judge appointed by President Bill Clinton declared the same Trump Administration action to be unlawful. The findings offer evidence that, in a politically salient case, the partisan identification of the judge – here, as a “Bush judge” or “Clinton judge” – can influence the credibility …

Keep The Federal Courts Great, Carl W. Tobias

Law Faculty Publications

Ever since Donald Trump began running for President, he has incessantly vowed to “make the federal judiciary great again” by deliberately seating conservative, young, and capable judicial nominees, a project which Republican senators and their leader, Mitch McConnell (R-KY), have decidedly embraced and now vigorously implement. The chief executive and McConnell now constantly remind the American people of their monumental success in nominating and confirming aspirants to the federal courts. The Senate has expeditiously and aggressively confirmed two very conservative, young, and competent Supreme Court Justices and fifty-three analogous circuit jurists, all of whom Trump nominated and vigorously supported throughout …

Preventing Whack-A-Mole Management Of Consumer Debt Cases: A Proposal For A Coherent And Comprehensive Approach For State Courts, Paula Hannaford-Agor, Brittany Kauffman

Faculty Publications

The debt burden is growing, and there is a strong likelihood that state courts will see corresponding increases in debt collection caseloads. To meet the challenge, state courts need to implement policies, rules, procedures, and business practices to manage consumer debt collection cases in a more consistent and coherent manner. As part of the Civil Justice Institute Implementation Plan, the National Center for State Courts and Institute for the Advancement of the American Legal System conducted preliminary research to document the impact of rules enacted in New York State on consumer debt litigation. The project also included an exploratory survey …

The Supreme Court And The 117th Congress, Andrew K. Jennings, Athul K. Acharya

Faculty Articles

If the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s successor is confirmed before the 2020 presidential election or in the post-election lame-duck period, and if Democrats come to have unified control of government on January 20, 2021, how can they respond legislatively to the Court’s new 6-3 conservative ideological balance? This Essay frames a hypothetical 117th Congress’s options, discusses its four simplest legislative responses—expand the Court, limit its certiorari discretion, restrict its jurisdiction, or reroute its jurisdiction—and offers model statutory language for enacting those responses.

Foreword, Syndie G. E. Molina

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Our Criminal Justice System Is A Bear Trap, Frederick K. Brewington

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Confession Obsession: How To Protect Minors In Interrogations, Cindy Chau

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Pretrial Detention In A Criminal System Looking For Justice, Gabrielle Costa

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Police Brutality And State-Sanctioned Violence In 21st Century America, Itohen Ihaza

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Remorse, Not Race: Essence Of Parole Release?, Lovashni Khalikaprasad

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

As Pertains To The Criminal Justice System, Is Hindsight 20/20?, Syndie G. E. Molina, Cristina Negrillo

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

The Inconvenience Of Justice: How Unmitigated Official Misconduct Almost Destroyed The Lives Of Five Young Boys From Harlem, Stefania Bordone, David Wright

Journal of Race, Gender, and Ethnicity

No abstract provided.

Interbranch Information Sharing: Examining The Statutory Opinion Transmission Project, Marin K. Levy, Tejas N. Narechania

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.