Civil Procedure Commons^™

Killing Kindness: How Law School Honor Codes Miss The Mark On Moral Character, Jordan Stevenson

Legal Writing Competition Winners

Do law schools foster a culture of kindness? This essay argues that law schools’ policies do not adequately address non-academic misconduct, resulting in university policies that fail to promote good moral character. This argument is supported by analyzing a sample of law school student conduct and honor codes, examining anecdotal evidence of law school experiences, and looking at American Bar Association (ABA) regulations. This essay concludes that current honor codes are inconsistent and insufficient and provides suggestions to improve the Model Rules of Professional Conduct, add a Standard for ABA law school regulation, and institute honor codes regarding non-academic misconduct.

Small Claims Mediation In Maine: An Empirical Assessment, Craig A. Mcewen, Richard J. Maiman

Maine Law Review

In recent years considerable attention has been paid in the United States to the development of informal "alternatives to court" as part of a world-wide access to justice movement. Of these alternatives to courts, mediation contrasts most sharply with adjudication and, in theory, promises much by way of decreasing the alienation of citizens when it is made an adjunct to the formal judicial process. The contrast and promise stem largely from the participatory and consensual character of the mediation process. A third party to the dispute—the mediator—encourages the parties to find a mutually agreeable settlement by helping them to sharpen …

Open Justice Baltimore V. Baltimore City Law Department: Brief For Scholars Of Civil Procedure And First Amendment Organizations As Amici Curiae In Support Of Petitioners, Maureen Carroll

Appellate Briefs

Amici are scholars whose research and teaching focus on civil procedure, including pleading standards; an organization that provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals who have had their rights violated, including First Amendment rights; and a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to defending freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and the people’s right to know. Their expertise is relevant to the impacts of the legal issue in this case on civil procedure and the First Amendment. Amici also have a strong professional interest in the proper disposition of cases involving civil procedure and ensuring the efficient disposition of meritorious …

Navigating Personal Jurisdiction Based On Social Media Activity - Tips For Practitioners, Anna C. Conley

Faculty Law Review Articles

When will a social media post subject a defendant to personal jurisdiction outside their home state? The U.S. Supreme Court has not weighed in on the personal jurisdiction standard in intentional tort cases based on a defendant’s social media activity. Ever-changing technology and social media use have created a fractured legal landscape across circuit courts. This article does two things: (1) Provides an overview of the fractured landscape; and (2) Attempts to distill some guidelines for practitioners dealing with personal jurisdiction in intentional tort cases involving social media activity. The takeaway is that the defendant’s targeting of the forum state, …

Familial Fairness: Guaranteeing The Right To Counsel For Indigent Parents In Juvenile Dependency Proceedings, Jake Toth

Dickinson Law Review (2017-Present)

Fairness principles enumerated in the seminal case Gideon v. Wainwright stand for the proposition that fundamental fairness and due process require appointment of counsel for indigent litigants. However, this principle has been constrained to criminal contexts. Many other types of litigation are just as impactful as a criminal proceeding, including juvenile dependency proceedings. Nevertheless, indigent parents do not enjoy an unqualified representation right.

This Comment traces the history of the representation right and how it has been treated in a juvenile dependency context, beginning with Gideon itself and examining other cases such as Eldridge and Lassiter. It then examines …

Unspeakable Objections: Recovering From The Tricks And Traps Of Rule 30(C)(2), Leonard Niehoff, Shannon Hickey

Articles

The boundary between a proper “working” objection and an improper “speaking” objection under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(c)(2) turns out to be less discernible and more mysterious than we might like. It’s certainly less plain than some lawyers believe and some judges have suggested. We all need a better understanding of how and why the business of making objections at depositions can get complicated under the terms of this rule.

Pretrial In Maine Under New Rule 16: Settlement, Sanctions, And Sayonara, Robert J. Plourde

Maine Law Review

On September 1, 1980, a new pretrial procedure rule became effective in Maine. The rule was heralded as "the most significant modification of the Maine Rules of Civil Procedure in recent years." The rule was intended to remedy major defects in existing pretrial procedure and to benefit judges and attorneys through more explicit directions for pretrial procedure. Ultimately, the goal of this reform is to achieve a "just result of litigation.” This Comment begins with an overview and evaluation of quantitative studies of the pretrial conference in various judicial systems. The Comment then analyzes the new Maine rule and its …

Civil Juries In Maine: Are The Benefits Worth The Costs?, Donald Alexander

Maine Law Review

Throughout this century, legal scholars have vigorously criticized civil juries with little apparent effect. Despite the civil jury's long history of successful resistance to change, new considerations make it imperative that we conduct a fundamental review of the functioning of the civil jury as an instrument of justice for the twenty-first century. That review has begun in Maine. Under the direction of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court, a comprehensive jury management study has just been completed. Proposals for changes in jury management and efficiency are now being developed. As part of this process, we can simply perpetuate the past or …

An Analysis Of Federal Drug-Related Civil Forfeiture, Susan J. Parcels

Maine Law Review

Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Arthur J. Goldenbaum participated in a raid at the home of Mrs. Edna Salas, arrested her husband, and charged him with possession of heroin. Pursuant to a warrant, Goldenbaum searched the Salas's 1975 Mercedes and found four marijuana cigarette butts in the ashtray. The government seized the Mercedes, sold it, and collected the proceeds. This is an example of forfeiture-the loss of goods to the government as a result of the commission of a crime-under the federal drug laws. This Comment examines federal civil forfeiture statutes applicable to drug trafficking. The widespread judicial reluctance to …

A Rule 54(B) Dilemma: Divorces Lacking "Finality" Due To Undismissed Counterclaims, Ellen Kandoian

Maine Law Review

Recent decisions of the Maine Law Court bring into sharp focus certain difficulties inherent in applying rules of civil procedure developed in the context of federal practice to a state law setting. In such instances, the rules must operate on certain types of litigation peculiar to state law, notably the entire field of domestic relations. In a field bearing the unique features and demands of domestic relations, it is not surprising that federally patterned rules raised problems not anticipated by their drafters. In the 1981 case of Parent v. Parent, the Maine Law Court, in customary observance of Rule 54(b) …

Legal Analysis Of The Application Of The Principle Of Contrarius Actus Related To The Cancellation Of Documents To Fulfil Citizen’S Rights In Population Administration At The Population And Civil Registration Office, Enis Tristiana, Muhammad Bagus Adi Wicaksono, Alifia Putri Mahardika, Napadol Kewha

Jurnal Civics: Media Kajian Kewarganegaraan

This research describes and examines the implementation of the Contrarius Actus principle in cancelling population documents and the obstacles to applying the Contrarius Actus principle in cancelling population documents. The type of research used is descriptive empirical research with a qualitative approach. The description of the research results is complemented by primary and literature data relevant to the research topic. The results of this study indicate that the application of cancelling population documents through the Contrarius Actus principle has its criteria, namely, not changing the meaning in population documents and population documents issued by the Population and Civil Registration Office. …

Proportionality And The Federal Rule Of Civil Procedure 26(B)(1): An Empirical Inquiry, Daniel Croxall, Michael Vitiello

University of Cincinnati Law Review

No abstract provided.

Taking Proportionality Seriously: A Countercultural Approach, Suzanne Chiodo

Articles & Book Chapters

Proportionality was introduced into Ontario’s Rules of Civil Procedure in 2008. A plain reading of Rules 1.04(1) and (1.1) is the ‘traditional’ interpretation of proportionality: that proportionality is merely the means of furthering efficiency and economy in individual cases, with the aim of better securing substantive justice on the merits in those cases. The relative measure is what is at stake in the individual case. This article suggests a counter-cultural interpretation: that proportionality is equal in importance to substantive justice and that, in certain circumstances, substantive justice in individual cases must give way to proportionality, in order to secure the …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents

Re-Imagining Tomorrow: A Technology, Innovation Law, And Ethics Symposium On Addictive Technology And Children, Margaret Chon

Seattle University Law Review

In this Foreword, Professor Margaret Chon introduces Seattle University's Technology, Innovation Law, and Ethics (TILE) program, the 2024 TILE Symposium, and Dr. Gaia Bernstein’s Unwired: Gaining Control Over Addictive Technologies.

Keynote Address: The Movement To Protect Kids From Addictive Technologies, Gaia Bernstein

Seattle University Law Review

In this keynote address, I describe my personal journey starting with a school outreach program I created in 2017 to address technology overuse among kids. While I initially advocated for self-help methods, I grew to recognize that the tech industry bore responsibility. This realization led me to write Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, which focused on collective action to pressure the tech industry to redesign its addictive products.

I then describe the movement to control addictive technologies and protect kids, which has gained momentum since the end of the pandemic. This movement combines grassroots parent activism with legal-political action. …

Moral Panic Or Public Health Crisis? Lessons From Drugs And Gambling For “Addictive” Design, Matthew B. Lawrence, Haomin (Kevin) Yan

Seattle University Law Review

Alcohol, automobiles, guns, lottery, loot boxes, meat, music, opioid painkillers, processed foods, prop bets, slot machines, television, tobacco, violent video games. Over the last century each of these has been subject to concerns—some might even say “moral panics”—from parents and policymakers about avoidable harms to kids and adults. In some cases we look back with the benefit of hindsight and dismiss those concerns as naïve or moralistic. In others we look back at them as justified or as having come too late to check an expanding industry before it did unfathomable harm while growing so powerful that it became all …

Responding To Digital Addiction, Ned Snow

Seattle University Law Review

In Unwired: Gaining Control over Addictive Technologies, Professor Gaia Bernstein calls our attention to the growing problem of digital addiction. Digital addiction may sound like something out of a science-fiction novel or something that does not raise the same sort of real-life practical concerns as are present in a physical health crisis or an economic decline. But as Bernstein presents the evidence, we learn that the consequences of digital addiction can be just as harmful as a serious disease or a financial depression. Cognitive development disorders, anxiety, emotional depression, social isolation, and other mental health ills can be debilitating—as much …

The Ai Doppelgänger Dilemma: Cloned Voices In The Music Industry, Elizabeth Shields

Seattle University Law Review

With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (AI), there has been an influx of “voice clones”—deep-learning algorithms that create synthetic speech to realistically mimic human voices. Celebrities and, in particular, music artists, have been subjected to the proliferation of AI voice clones on social media platforms like TikTok and streaming platforms such as Spotify. Despite music utilizing AI voice clones having amassed much popularity, this technology can be harmful and highly invasive to musicians whose livelihoods often depend on their distinct voices. While legal scholars have attempted to articulate various rights that could protect a person’s voice, individuals are largely …

Let The Sunshine In: Crafting Constitutional Transparency Regulations For Content Moderation, Caitlin Ring Carlson

Seattle University Law Review

In response to public concern about the impact of social media, legislators in some U.S. states have developed laws to regulate the process of content moderation. Many include mandatory transparency and disclosure requirements, some of which courts have already deemed an unconstitutional infringement on social media platforms’ right to free expression. This article explores the parameters for crafting constitutional social media transparency regulations using existing U.S. media policy and insights from recent legal challenges. The resulting analysis identifies content neutral transparency requirements that mandate the disclosure of purely factual, non-controversial information as those most likely to withstand judicial scrutiny. Specifically, …