Litigation Commons^™

Freestyle Lawyering: Taking An Expedited Appeal In The New York State Courts, Alicia R. Ouellette

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

Expedited Appeals In Indiana: Too Little, Too Late, Joel M. Shumm

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

The Right To Trial By Jury In Arkansas After Merger Of Law And Equity, John J. Watkins

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Possible, But Not Likely: Expedited Appeals In Massachusetts, Davalene Cooper

The Journal of Appellate Practice and Process

No abstract provided.

A Practitioner's Guide To Arkansas's New Judicial Article, Larry Brady, J.D. Gingerich

University of Arkansas at Little Rock Law Review

No abstract provided.

Recognition And Enforcement Of Foreign Judgments In The United States: The Need For Federal Legislation, 37 J. Marshall L. Rev. 229 (2003), Violeta I. Balan

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Access To Justice For The Self-Represented Litigant: An Interdisciplinary Investigation By Designers And Lawyers, Ronald W. Staudt, Paula Hannaford-Agor

Faculty Publications

To assist courts, the National Center for State Courts, in partnership with the Illinois Institute of Technology's Institute of Design and the Chicago-Kent College of Law, launched a research project to examine court processes and recommend modifications to eliminate or reduce procedural barriers to access for self-represented litigants. The projects had three major tasks: (1) to identify major barriers to access to justice that self-represented litigants encounter due to court procedures and administrative requirements; (2) to employ system design methodology to redesign court processes to remove those barriers, and (3) to translate the conceptual model for redesigned court system into …

Federal Class Action Reform In The United States: Past And Future And Where Next?, Edward H. Cooper

Articles

Predicting the likely future developments in class action practice in the federal courts of the United States must begin in the past.

U.S. Jury Reform: The Active Jury And The Adversarial Ideal, Valerie P. Hans

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

In many countries, lay people participate as decision makers in legal cases. Some countries include their citizens in the justice system as lay judges or jurors, who assess cases independently. The legal systems of other nations combine lay and law-trained judges who decide cases together in mixed tribunals. The International Conference on Lay Participation in the Criminal Trial in the 21st Century provided useful contrasts among different methods of incorporating lay voices into criminal justice systems worldwide. Systems with inquisitorial methods are more likely to employ mixed courts, whereas adversarial systems more often use juries. Research presented at the Conference …

The Communities That Make Standards Of Care Possible, Anita Bernstein

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

'Can We Go Home Now?' Expediting Adoption And Termination Of Parental Rights Appeals In Ohio State Courts, Susan Wawrose

School of Law Faculty Publications

Two years ago, the Ohio Supreme Court amended its rules and those of Ohio's intermediate appellate courts in order to fast-track appeals of cases involving termination of parental rights ("TPR") and adoption of minor children. Three of Ohio's twelve appellate districts already had local rules to expedite or accelerate these types of appeals, but in some districts, the amended rules established procedures that were entirely new.

The major impetus behind the court's amendments to the rules was to move children out of foster care and into permanent adoptive homes more quickly. Further, by amending the rules of the intermediate appellate …

Plaintiphobia In The Appellate Courts: Civil Rights Really Do Differ From Negotiable Instruments, Kevin M. Clermont, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Professors Clermont and Eisenberg conducted a systematic analysis of appellate court behavior and report that defendants have a substantial advantage over plaintiffs on appeal. Their analysis attempted to control for different variables that may affect the decision to appeal or the appellate outcome, including case complexity, case type, amount in controversy, and whether there had been a judge or a jury trial. Once they accounted for these variables and explored and discarded various alternate explanations, they came to the conclusion that a defendants' advantage exists probably because of appellate judges' misperceptions that trial level adjudicators are pro-plaintiff.

Swallowing The Apple Whole: Improper Patent Use By Local Rule, Ellisen S. Turner

Michigan Law Review

During patent infringement litigation, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ("FRCP") and the federal district court's local rules govern the parties' pretrial discovery and motion practice. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has adopted the most comprehensive local rules to date covering pretrial procedures in the patent litigation context. The Northern District of California Patent Local Rules ("Local Rules") may come to have a significant impact throughout the federal courts, as it appears that other jurisdictions and commentators are looking to the Local Rules for guidance. For instance, the American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property …

Can We Talk?: Removing Counterproductive Ethical Restraints Upon Ex Parte Communication Between Attorneys And Adverse Expert Witnesses, Stephen D. Easton

Indiana Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Outrageous Opponents: How To Stop Them In Closing Argument, Ronald L. Carlson, Michael S. Carlson

Popular Media

Most attorneys try to sum up their cases in a fashion that comports with accepted law and local practice. All too frequently, however, one has the misfortune of running into Rambo, the over-the-top opponent. Before his peroration is concluded, Rambo has trampled on the law of trial practice by making half a dozen improper arguments. He urges evidence that never came up at trial. He injects hearsay into the proceedings. He adds his own opinions about which witnesses were lying and the legal fault of your client. And, this is just the beginning. Adding insult to injury, the unjust tactics …

Politics And Sociology In Federal Civil Rulemaking: Errors Of Scope, Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

In April 2000 the United States Supreme Court promulgated a package of Proposed Amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure that took effect on December 1, 2000, without Congressional intervention. As one commentator observed, “(a)ll of (the proposed amendments) promise to have a significant effect on discovery practice.” One Proposed Amendment--narrowing the scope of discovery available pursuant to Rule 26(b)(1)--was particularly controversial before both the Advisory Committee, the Standing Committee, and the Judicial Conference. Nonetheless, the Proposed Amended Rule narrowing scope proceeded from the Court to finality with no intervention by Congress. Proponents of the change minimized criticism by …

Ulysses Tied To The Generic Whipping Post: The Continuing Odyssey Of Discovery "Reform", Jeffrey W. Stempel

Scholarly Works

One need not be a charter member of the Critical Legal Studies Movement (“CLS”) to see a few fundamental contradictions in litigation practice in the United States. A prominent philosophical tenet of the CLS movement is that law and society are gripped by a “fundamental contradiction” and simultaneously seek to embrace contradictory objectives. Civil litigation, particularly discovery, is no exception: New amendments to the discovery rules are the latest example of this contradiction. Although the new changes are not drastic, they continue the post-1976 pattern of making discovery the convenient scapegoat for generalized complaints about the dispute resolution system. One …

Thou Shall Not Strike: Religion-Based Peremptory Challenges Under The Washington State Constitution, Justin Dolan

Seattle University Law Review

This Comment will first define the peremptory challenge and discuss its history and normative values. It will then examine the United States Supreme Court's treatment of the peremptory challenge, focusing on how the peremptory challenge has changed from a litigation device that lawyers could exercise without explanation to one that at times requires an explanation for it to survive constitutional challenge. Next, this Comment will discuss state courts' independent interpretation of fundamental rights, Washington courts' decisions in harmony with this principle, and State v. Gunwall, the guide to independent constitutional interpretation in Washington. This Comment will show that under …

The Impact Of Science On Legal Decisions: What Can Social Science Tell The Courts And Lawyers?, Theresa M. Beiner

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Health Care Ethics Experts In Canadian Courts, Jocelyn Downie

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In this paper, I will first describe the traditional approach to the use of experts in Canadian courts. Then I will consider whether, on this approach, health care ethics experts should be permitted to testify in Canadian courts. I will argue that they should be permitted to testify but caution should be exercised by the courts, the parties, and the experts themselves. The objective of the paper is to highlight the strengths and raise some concerns about the weaknesses of a practice that appears to be growing, so that the potential harmful consequences might be anticipated, problems with the practice …

Public Interest Litigation In A Comparative Context, Jayanth K. Krishnan

Articles by Maurer Faculty

No abstract provided.

Can Contested Disciplinary Actions Be Considered In Subsequent Termination Proceedings? An Analysis Of United States Postal Service V. Gregory, Barbara J. Fick

Journal Articles

This article previews the Supreme Court case U.S. Postal Service v. Gregory, 534 U.S. 1, 2001. The author expected the case to examine whether, under the Civil Service Reform Act, the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) abuse its discretion when it considers prior discipline that is currently being challenged by the employee in ongoing grievance proceedings?

"Garbage In, Garbage Out": The Litigation Implosion Over The Unconstitutional Organization And Jurisdiction Of The City Court Of Atlanta, Edward C. Brewer Iii

Mercer Law Review

The City Court of Atlanta, the primary traffic court for Atlanta, Georgia, has exercised jurisdiction since 1996 over more than one million traffic violations and, since 1988 and under two statutes, some fifty thousand nontraffic misdemeanors. The City Court's first predecessor, the Traffic Court of Atlanta, adjudicated traffic law violations from 1955 to 1967 and was replaced in 1967 by a second court, also known as the City Court, which existed until 1996. That City Court's jurisdiction was expanded in 1988 to include nontraffic misdemeanors arising from the same occurrence as the traffic violation. In 1996 the City Court was …

What's Half A Lung Worth? Civil Jurors' Accounts Of Their Award Decision Making, Nicole L. Mott, Valerie P. Hans, Lindsay Simpson

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Jury awards are often criticized as being arbitrary and excessive. This paper speaks to that controversy, reporting data from interviews with civil jurors' accounts of the strategies that juries use and the factors that they consider in arriving at a collective award. Jurors reported difficulty in deciding on awards, describing it as "the hardest part" of jury service and were surprised the court did not provide more guidance to them. Relatively few jurors entered the jury deliberation room with a specified award figure in mind. Once in the deliberation room, however, they reported discussing a variety of relevant factors such …

Justice Delayed?: An Empirical Analysis Of Civil Case Disposition Time, Michael Heise

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

This Article addresses the need to understand better our civil justice system by exploring possible determinants of disposition time for civil cases that reach a jury trial. This study uses one year of civil jury case outcomes from 45 of the nation's 75 most populous counties and identifies locale as one important variable, along with certain case types, results, and characteristics. An empirically moored understanding of the causes of case disposition time will assist public policy and reform efforts that seek to make civil justice speedier and, as a consequence, more inexpensive and just. Findings from this study call into …

"The Mis-Characterization Of The Negro": A Race Critique Of The Prior Conviction Impeachment Rule, Montrè D. Carodine

Indiana Law Journal

The election of Barack Obama as the nation's first Black President was a watershed moment with respect to race relations in the United States. Obama's election removed what to many seemed a nearly insurmountable racial barrier. Yet as he transitions into his historic role and his family becomes the first Black occupants of the White House, scores of Blacks are housed in jails and prisons across the country. The mass incarceration of Blacks, among other serious issues, demonstrates that race still matters in the United States. As then-presidential candidate Obama acknowledged in the speech that many viewed to be pivotal …

John Marshall, Mcculloch V. Maryland, And The Southern States' Rights Tradition, 33 J. Marshall L. Rev. 875 (2000), R. Kent Newmyer

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

John Marshall In Spencer Roane's Virginia: The Southern Constitutional Opposition To The Marshall Court, 33 J. Marshall L. Rev. 1131 (2000), F. Thornton Miller

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Retaliatory Discharge For Attorney-Employees In Private Practice: To Do, Or Not To Do, The Right Thing, 33 J. Marshall L. Rev. 383 (2000), Terri Martin Kirik

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.

Bitch V. Whore: The Current Trend To Define The Requirements Of An Actionable Hostile Environment Claim In Verbal Sexual Harassment Cases, 33 J. Marshall L. Rev. 465 (2000), Jamie Lynn Cook

UIC Law Review

No abstract provided.