Judges Commons^™

Crossing The Toll Bridge: American Pipe And The Fate Of State Law Claims After Class Certification Denial In Federal Court, Alexander Schnur

Fordham Law Review

Rule 23(c)(1)(A) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) provides that, “At an early practicable time after a person sues . . . as a class representative, the court must determine by order whether to certify the action as a class action.” In American Pipe & Construction Co. v. Utah, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed the interplay of this FRCP 23(c)(1)(A) class certification decision and statutes of limitations, holding that the commencement of a putative class action suspends the statute of limitations for putative class members while class certification is pending. Over the last fifty years, the American …

Business Court Best Practices: Constructive Thoughts On The Challenging Work Of Effective Commercial And Corporate Law Adjudication, Leo E. Strine, Jr.

Texas A&M Law Review

A market-based economy governed by the rule of law constitutes part of our traditional freedom as Americans. And that economy’s fair and efficient functioning is important to the economic opportunities and security of all Americans. To aid in that important end, during the last two generations, many American states have attempted, by various means, to create judicial forums, often termed “business courts,” for the efficient and fair resolution of business disputes. Many of these business court initiatives have drawn inspiration from the success of the Delaware Court of Chancery and the Delaware Supreme Court in resolving corporate and commercial disputes …

Judicial Independence As A Constitutional Construction, Keith E. Whittington

Texas A&M Law Review

An independent judiciary, in the American context, might best be understood as a constitutional construction. That is, it is a politically constructed set of practices, institutions, and norms that extend, but do not contradict, the legal requirements of the formal constitution. As such, judicial independence has come to occupy a fundamental status within our inherited constitutional order. But importantly, it is mutable. Our inherited practice of judicial independence has been built up and fought over across time, and within the contours of the written constitution, can be significantly reconstructed.

The example of judicial independence can serve as a useful illustration …

Ai And Legal Malpractice: Are We Due For A Reckoning?, John Browning

Texas A&M Law Review

As the rate of AI adoption by lawyers steadily climbs, unfortunately so has the number of incidents of AI misuse by attorneys. For some time, courts satisfied themselves with giving offending lawyers warnings, ordering them to take additional CLE, and/or administering relatively nominal monetary sanctions. Lately, however, frustrated judges throughout the country have upped the ante by not only assessing increasingly higher sanctions but also imposing case dismissals and suspensions or disciplinary referrals for the lawyers involved. As this article discusses, with their negligence exposed to the public eye and the harsh gaze of their clients, lawyers who misuse AI …

L’Interprétation Par Le Juge Des Règles Écrites (Droit Libanais) : Du Fait Au Droit Et Du Droit Au Fait, Sélim Jahel

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

No abstract provided.

Closing Remarks, Jelani Jefferson Exum

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Thank you so much, Judge Bellacosa. Your message is truly inspiring. And it is an honor for us to receive an A+ grade from you!

Let me turn it back to you, our alumni judges. I am so glad you could join us tonight and allow us to recognize your professional achievements. And of course, with so many potential employers in the room, I can’t help myself . . . . Many of you hire 1L interns and clerks. I encourage all of you to take on our amazing students and give them an opportunity of a lifetime to …

Keynote Address, The Honorable Joseph William Bellacosa

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

First things first, thank you for the convocation, Judge Edwards, for the very kind introduction, Judge Vyskocil, for the table setting menu from Cardozo Professor John Barrett, and especially to you, Dean Jelani Jefferson Exum, for your kind invitation to be part of this special program honoring judicial alumni of our alma mater. And a hearty congratulations to our alma mater and all of us judicial alumni on the 100th Anniversary celebration.

Dean, I recall that you encouraged me to participate tonight, a special privilege, with a thoughtful request for “brief remarks.”

Introducing The Honorable Joseph William Bellacosa, The Honorable Mary Kay Vyskocil

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Good evening, I am Mary Kay Vyskocil, class of 1983, now a judge in the Southern District of New York.

I am a very proud alumna of St. John’s Law School and am so humbled to be with this impressive gathering of alumni who have served our state and our country as members of the judiciary. The law school provided all of us with the sound legal foundation we needed to handle the important work of the judiciary and I, for one, am very grateful for the education I received at the law school, the friends I made while …

Continued: Celebrating Alumni In The Judiciary, Jelani Jefferson Exum

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Thank you, John. I now have the honor of introducing the Honorable Mary Kay Vyskocil, class of 1983, former President of the St. John’s Law Alumni Association Board of Directors, and co-founder of its Manhattan Chapter.

Honorable Mary Kay Vyskocil serves as a United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York, a position she has held since December 20, 2019. Prior to her promotion to the district court, Judge Vyskocil served as a United States Bankruptcy Judge for the same district from 2016 to 2019.

Alumni In The Judiciary, John Q. Barrett

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Good evening, friends. Happy 100th birthday. Thank you for being here. And thank you for all that you do for St. John’s University School of Law, including making us so proud.

I will begin by repeating what I just said about why we are here tonight. We are here in our school’s centennial year to celebrate all of you, plus all other alumni, who have served or do serve as judges.

You might not realize that judges played a central role in St. John’s Law’s founding.

Continued: Celebrating Alumni In The Judiciary, Jelani Jefferson Exum

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Thank you, Judge. It is now my privilege to introduce Professor John Q. Barrett, the Benjamin N. Cardozo Professor of Law. Professor Barrett is a nationally recognized scholar of Constitutional Law, Criminal Procedure, and Legal History. He is also the Elizabeth S. Lenna Fellow at the Robert H. Jackson Center, where his work focuses on Justice Robert Jackson’s legacy and the Nuremberg Trials.

Convocation, The Honorable Genine Johnson Edwards

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Judge Edwards delivered a brief convocation to begin the event.

Opening Remarks: Celebrating Alumni In The Judiciary, Jelani Jefferson Exum

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Good evening and welcome! I am deeply honored to address such a distinguished group of alumni, our alumni who serve as judges— perhaps the most important role a lawyer can have. Law professors may argue with that, but I think tonight we can let the judges have it!

But, seriously—today, perhaps more than ever, we recognize how profoundly judges—especially those who graduated from St. John’s Law—shape our profession with distinction and unwavering integrity. Your excellence on the bench—your courtroom presence, your thoughtful judgments and opinions, and your steadfast dedication to St. John’s Law—all reflect tremendously upon our law school …

المحكمة العليا الأميركية في النقاش القانوني المعاصر: مراجعة المحكمة القضائية بين نظرية جن هارت إيلي ونظرية روبرت بورك, شبلي الملاّط

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

No abstract provided.

Le Droit Administratif Libanais, Est-Il Toujours Un Droit Non Écrit ?, Hassan-Tabet Rifaat

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

No abstract provided.

Norm-Based Remedies For Statutory Inequalities, Evan H. Caminker

Articles

Upon finding that a statute creates an unconstitutional inequality, courts face an intriguing remedial question: how to enjoin executive officials henceforth to implement the statute in a nondiscriminatory manner. There are almost always two options: “leveling up” to extend a statutory benefit or burden to the initially excluded group, and “leveling down” to withdraw the benefit or burden from the initially included group.

For decades, the Supreme Court has approached this remedial enterprise as if no substantive constitutional values guide the choice between leveling up and leveling down; so long as the remedy establishes prospectively equal treatment at any level, …

Législateurs Déguisés En Juges Ou Fidèles Serviteurs De La Loi?, Michel Halbecq S.J.

Proche-Orient, Études juridiques

No abstract provided.

The Silent Bench: How The Chilean Judiciary Failed To Check Pinochet's Executive Power And The Continued Struggle For Judicial Independence, Daniela González García

Latin American & Caribbean Law Review

Although authoritarian regimes are often associated with lawlessness, many consolidate power through carefully crafted legal framework that create the illusion of illegality. Chile under Augusto Pinochet offers a critical case study of this phenomenon. In Chile, Pinochet ushered in his “authoritarian legality” after spearheading a military coup in 1973 that toppled a democratically elected left-wing government. Through Chile’s 1980 Constitution, drafted by hand-picked loyalists and approved in a tightly controlled setting, Pinochet’s regime embedded executive supremacy, restricted judicial review, and transformed Chile’s courts into a silent bench. Applying David S. Clark’s theory that judicial review must be evaluated within a …

Fiscal Sustainability And The Courts In Colombia, Eleonora Lozano-Rodríguez

Latin American & Caribbean Law Review

This text offers a theoretical and conceptual approach to fiscal sustainability and to the mechanism of fiscal impact review. It also examines specific judicial cases where fiscal sustainability and/or fiscal impact review have been applied in areas such as social security, victims of the Colombian internal armed conflict, community mothers, and taxation. The article concludes that the difficult dialogue between law and economics has improved, though legal nuances still need clarification, and economic advantages or disadvantages remain to be measured. At times, the guarantee of rights prevailed (for example, compensation for Black, Afro-Colombian, Raizal, and Palenquero communities, as well as …

A Sociolegal Explanation Of The Judicial Reform In Mexico, Alberto Abad Suárez Ávila

Latin American & Caribbean Law Review

This paper aims to offer a socio legal explanation for Mexico’s ongoing judicial reform, which shifts from a civil career paradigm for appointing judges to a popular election model. Most scholars have explained the reform mainly because of populism and constitutional authoritarianism. They focus on the political and normative factors. I would like to broaden the perspective: using a sociolegal approach, I consider other relevant factors, including some economic context as well as cultural aspects, to provide a more comprehensive explanation of the phenomenon.

On The Need To Recognize The Erga Omnes Effect In Fundamental Rights In Chilean Law, José Luis Guerrero Becar

Latin American & Caribbean Law Review

This article refers to the Chilean legal tradition of the relative effect of judgments, that is, their effects apply only to the parties involved in the litigation. This principle has an express exception in the Consumer Rights Protection Act, which mentions the erga omnes effect. Since 2010, this principle has come under scrutiny due to constitutional injunctions in social security matters administered by private companies known as ISAPRES (National Health Insurance Companies). These companies have increased the prices of health plans, using tables that apply factors based on age and sex. This has led to the filing of thousands of …

Reckless Accomplices, Ben A. Mcjunkin

Northwestern University Law Review

In recent years, criminal prosecutors have pursued homicide charges against the parents of teenaged school shooters. Two high-profile cases—one from Michigan and one from Georgia—provide paradigmatic examples. In each case, the parents provided their children with weapons and ammunition despite obvious signs of each child’s dangerousness and instability. Criminal liability for such reckless conduct is appropriate. But homicide charges are not. This Article critiques this new trend in prosecutions as distorting the substantive criminal law to obtain an outcome that is otherwise unavailable without criminal code reform.

It is a long-held criminal law tenet that intentional wrongful conduct by one …

Arbitration In Name Only, Myriam Gilles

Northwestern University Law Review

Modern arbitration clauses hide a dirty secret: many don’t actually provide for genuine arbitration. These provisions masquerade as mutual commitments to fair and efficient private dispute resolution but, in truth, are mere imitations of genuine arbitration provisions. Some reserve for the drafter the power to amend or terminate the clause at will without notice or consent; others design the arbitration process to ensure bias from the start; still others depart so radically from the bilateral, informal model blessed by the Supreme Court that they scarcely resemble arbitration at all. These arrangements are arbitration in name only, falling outside the Federal …

Originalism's General-Law Turn, Nina Varsava, Bill Watson

Northwestern University Law Review

Originalists are increasingly turning to a general-law theory of constitutional rights. Under this theory, constitutional enactment declared but did not create constitutional rights. The content of those rights was, and remains, a question of general law—a species of common law, regularly employed at the Founding, that transcends jurisdictional boundaries. This preoccupation with general law has precipitated a wave of scholarship developing general-law accounts of various constitutional rights. Yet the nature of general law itself remains poorly understood.

This Article offers a theory of general law. Using philosophical methods to reexamine early American cases and recent work in legal history, the …

The Role Of Reliance In Stare Decisis Doctrine, Rochelle Hestnas

Fordham Law Review

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent treatment of reliance interests in stare decisis doctrine is in flux. The Court has overruled long-standing precedent such as Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey with scant analysis as to how reliance interests factor into stare decisis doctrine, despite continuing to name reliance as a factor that should be considered. Arguments for whether and how reliance interests deserve protection are inherently challenging because it cannot be the case that every precedent should stand. Using Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization as a case study, this Note analyzes the Court’s claim …

Gagasan Kode Etik Untuk Mantan Hakim Konstitusi: Perbandingan Dengan Federal Constitutional Court Jerman, Ryan Muthiara Wasti, Fitra Arsil, Aidul Fitriciada Azhari, Fatmawati Fatmawati

Jurnal Hukum & Pembangunan

One aspect of evaluating the Constitutional Court, which has been in existence since 2003, is the issue of ethical compliance. Although a code of ethics for constitutional judges currently exists, it applies only to sitting constitutional judges. In reality, however, many former constitutional judges frequently act as parties in cases heard by the Constitutional Court. The author found that there are still former Constitutional Court judges who have served as parties—either as principals or as legal representatives. Although there is no explicit prohibition, the involvement of former constitutional judges in case proceedings raises the potential for conflicts of interest and …

Court Reform And State Constitutions, Bryna Godar, Miriam Seifter

Northwestern University Law Review

State legislatures regularly propose and enact laws that seek to shape the substantive outcomes of state courts. These maneuvers, including court-packing, jurisdiction-stripping, and more creative changes to judicial selection or authority, would amount to legal earthquakes at the federal level. At the state level, these efforts often receive virtually no attention.

This Essay brings the potent category of outcome-shaping state court reform measures into focus and evaluates it as a question of state constitutional law. We argue that state constitutions, organized around principles of popular sovereignty, do not bar measures that align state courts with popular preferences or the public’s …

State Constitutionalism's Fragile Wall, Adam B. Sopko

Northwestern University Law Review

The adequate and independent state grounds (AISG) doctrine has long demarcated the perimeter of the U.S. Supreme Court’s authority to review state court decisions, limiting review to questions of federal law. AISG maintains the Court’s primacy over federal law and state courts’ supremacy over state law. A comprehensive review of all filings on the Court’s docket from state courts over the last twenty years reveals that recent applications of AISG consist of subtle but significant departures from existing norms that, together, suggest a reformulation of the Court’s power over state courts that threatens their sovereign law development role. This Essay …

New Judicial Federalism At The Crossroads: Observations Of State Constitutionalism In Rhode Island, Melissa A. Long, Geoffrey H. Cole

Northwestern University Law Review

Jurists nationwide are engaged in robust conversations about state constitutionalism and the degree to which their state constitutions are more protective of individual rights than is the United States Constitution. The Rhode Island Supreme Court, like several state supreme courts, largely adheres to the minimum standards of protection that the United States Supreme Court establishes under the federal constitution when interpreting analogous provisions under the state constitution; that is, it follows a lockstep approach with the United States Supreme Court’s interpretation of individual rights guaranteed by the federal constitution that are also protected under the Rhode Island Constitution.

Proponents of …

State Constitutional Rights And Judicial Power, Zachary D. Clopton

Northwestern University Law Review

On the one hand, we are in a moment when interest in state courts and state constitutional law is growing. Especially, though not exclusively, among those who question the Supreme Court of the United States, there are increasing calls for state supreme courts to rely on state constitutions to expand rights. On the other hand, we are in a moment when interest in reducing the power of the courts is growing. Especially, though not exclusively, among those who question the Supreme Court of the United States, there are increasingly calls for reining in judicial power.

This Essay is not an …