Civil Procedure Commons^™

Lawyerless Law Development, Colleen Shanahan, Jessica Steinberg, Alyx Mark, Anna Carpenter

Faculty Articles

State civil courts are the object of growing scholarly attention converging from two directions: rapidly expanding research regarding lawyerless state civil trial courts, and an increasing volume of voices calling for state supreme courts to serve as a balm for American democracy’s wounds. The challenges of lawyerless trial courts and the potential of state supreme courts converge when considering how law develops in state civil courts. We and others have asserted that law development is not happening in lawyerless courts, at least not in the way that American legal scholars conventionally understand law development. This Essay explores the core theoretical …

Universal Forms Of Influence: Support For Women On Boards, Cindy A. Schipani, Paula J. Caproni

Seattle University Law Review

There are various efforts underway to increase gender diversity on corporate boards, including legislation in California, a recent SEC approved comply or explain rule for companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, and efforts by institutional investors such as State Street and BlackRock to recognize the value diversity brings to corporate decisionmaking. Although some of these efforts are being contested in the courts, many companies have begun to comply with these initiatives.

This Article is organized as follows. Part I provides an overview of several efforts to increase gender diversity on boards along with numerous research studies showcasing the benefits …

“Statistics Are Human Beings With The Tears Wiped Away”: Utilizing Data To Develop Strategies To Reduce The Number Of Native Americans Who Go Missing, Lori Mcpherson, Sarah Blazucki

Seattle University Law Review

On New Year’s Eve night, 2019, sixteen-year-old Selena Shelley Faye Not Afraid attended a party in Billings, Montana, about fifty miles west of her home in Hardin, Montana, near the Crow Reservation. A junior at the local high school, she was active in her community. The party carried over until the next day, and she caught a ride back toward home with friends in a van the following afternoon. When the van stopped at an interstate rest stop, Selena got out but never made it back to the van. The friends reported her missing to the police and indicated they …

Lloyd And The Legislative Void: Representative Actions In Transatlantic Context, Suzanne E. Chiodo

All Papers

The Canadian class action regimes have had a strong influence on the development of collective redress procedures in England. Canadian class proceedings legislation provided a model for the competition law class action regime in the UK, and before then, it featured prominently in the Civil Justice Council’s report that recommended the enactment of generic class actions legislation in England. It is fitting, then, that the UK Supreme Court’s recent decision in Lloyd v Google referred to the Canadian jurisprudence on the representative rule, which allows one or more claimants to represent a group with the ‘same interest’. While Lloyd did …

Exploring The Role Of Mandatory Mediation In Civil Justice, Nayha Acharya

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

In this article, I offer a framing of the debates around mandatory mediation that rest on the premise that a legitimate civil justice process depends on unhindered access to an adjudicative system, which must be recognized as a procedural right. This is a keystone of the rule of law, and a valid legal system that deserves the authority that it asserts is contingent on this. My central thesis is that requiring mediation (which is independent of the rule of law) before allowing full access to adjudication compromises the procedural rights of legal subjects, and the rule of law principle. Such …

Theorizing Access To Civil Justice, Matthew Dylag

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Despite more than half a century of reform efforts, access to civil justice is still understood to be in a state of crisis. Part of the reason for this is because there is no consensus among the legal community on the meaning of justice in this context. This paper seeks to provide a muchneeded theoretical underpinning to the access-to-civil-justice movement. It advances ‘justice as fairness,’ as articulated by the American philosopher John Rawls, in conjunction with Lesley Jacobs’ model of equal opportunities, as a suitable theory in which to frame the access-to-civil-justice movement. I explain why this framework is appropriate …

The Summary Judgment Revolution That Wasn't, Jonathan R. Nash, D. Daniel Sokol

Faculty Articles

The U.S. Supreme Court decided a trilogy of cases on summary judgment in 1986. Questions remain as to how much effect these cases have had on judicial decision-making in terms of wins and losses for plaintiffs. Shifts in wins, losses, and what cases get to decisions on the merits impact access to justice. We assemble novel datasets to examine this question empirically in three areas of law that are more likely to respond to shifts in the standard for summary judgment: antitrust, securities regulation, and civil rights. We find that the Supreme Court’s decisions had a statistically significant effect in …

Nestlé V. Doe: A Death Knell To Corporate Human Rights Accountability?, Phillip Ayers

Seattle University Law Review

The Supreme Court in Nestlé v. Doe held that foreign plaintiffs who claimed to be victims of overseas tortious conduct by corporate defendants had no jurisdiction to sue in federal courts using the Alien Tort Statute. This Comment looks at the history of the Alien Tort Statute, from its inspiration, long dormancy, and recent reinvigoration beginning in the 1980s. The Comment then explores the background of Nestlé and its issues with child slavery in its cocoa supply chain. From there, the Comment analyzes the Nestlé v. Doe decision, and posits an alternative outcome. Finally, this Comment looks for a new …

“Fundamental Fairness”: Finding A Civil Right To Counsel In International Human Rights Law, Meredith Elliot Hollman

Law Student Publications

Every other Western democracy now recognizes a right to counsel in at least some kinds of civil cases, typically those involving basic human rights. The World Justice Project’s 2021 Rule of Law Index ranked the United States 126th of 139 countries for “People Can Access and Afford Civil Justice.” Within its regional and income categories, the United States was dead last. The United Nations and other international treaty bodies have urged the United States to improve access to justice by providing civil legal aid. How did we fall behind, and what can we learn from the rest of the world? …

Duped By Dope: The Sackler Family’S Attempt To Escape Opioid Liability And The Need To Close The Non-Debtor Release Loophole, Bryson T. Strachan

Law Student Publications

The opioid epidemic continues to rage on in the United States, ravaging its rural populations. One of its main causes? OxyContin. Purdue Pharma (“Purdue”), the maker of OxyContin, aggressively marketed opioids to the American public while racking up a fortune of over $13 billion dollars for its owners,3 the Sackler family. As a result, roughly 3,000 lawsuits were filed against Purdue and members of the Sackler family. Generally, the lawsuits alleged that Purdue and members of the Sackler family knew OxyContin was highly addictive yet aggressively marketed high dosages of the drug and misrepresented the drug as nonaddictive and without …

The Pro Se Gender Gap, Roger Michalski

Faculty Articles

This article is the first to identify, name, and empirically measure the pro se gender gap. Drawing on a massive dataset of all federal civil dockets spanning 10 years, it finds a 2-to-1 gender imbalance. For every federal female pro se litigant there are two males. This finding is robust and stable. It holds true for plaintiffs, defendants, and other parties. It is also true across most subject areas, across time, across length of litigation, and across states, districts, and circuits. The study excludes prisoner-rights and habeas petitions (including them would widen the gender gap even further). This gender gap …

In Re. J.T., 252 A.3d 1276 (R.I. 2021)., Pia Piscitelli

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Verizon New England Inc. V. Savage, 267 A.3d 647 (R.I. 2022), Matthew Cavanaugh

Roger Williams University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Utilizing Legal Expertise To Positively Impact Coastal Communities, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Changemakers: Master Of Studies In Law: "Exactly What I Needed...": John Marion, Roger Williams University School Of Law

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

Purposivist Reasoning In Federal Civil Procedure, Lumen N. Mulligan, Emily Pennington

Faculty Works

This invited Article both reviews the Tenth Circuit’s stance on the circuit split addressing repleading counterclaims in amended answers and observes broader interpretive-approach trends in Federal Rules of Civil Procedure cases. In Sinclair Wyoming Refining Co. v. A & B Builders, Ltd., the Tenth Circuit holds that, absent prejudice to the opposing party, the failure to replead a counterclaim in an amended answer does not constitute abandonment; thus, taking the so-called permissive side of a circuit split on this question. In so doing, the Tenth Circuit adopts a purposivist approach to interpretation of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In …

Self-Intervention, Lumen N. Mulligan

Faculty Works

You cannot intervene in your own case, duh! Yet the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari on just this issue: Does Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 24(a)(2) allow state legislative leaders, seeking to represent the state’s sovereign interest, intervene when the attorney general is already representing the state’s sovereign interest. In this article, I contend that the text, history, and practice of Rule 24(a)(2) prohibits such “self-intervention.” I then explore how the fictive approach to state immunity established in Ex parte Young causes this confusion, while concluding that the doctrine, properly understood, focuses on real, not nominal, parties-in-interest. Next, I …

Corporate Governance And Gender Equality: A Study Of Comply-Or-Explain Disclosure Regulation, Aaron A. Dhir, Sarah Kaplan, Maria Arabella Robles

Seattle University Law Review

In 2020, the Nasdaq Stock Market filed a proposal with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission seeking permission to adopt a board diversity-related disclosure requirement for its listed companies. In 2021, the SEC approved the proposal, thus entrenching Nasdaq’s position as the most significant stock exchange to date to mandate listing rules that reflect the intention of diversifying corporate boardrooms. Nasdaq’s movement into the diversity space is not the first attempt to address homogeneous boards in the U.S. In 2009, the SEC adopted a rule requiring publicly traded firms to report on whether they consider diversity in identifying director nominees. …

Judicial Ethics And The Eradication Of Racism, Dontay Proctor-Mills

Seattle University Law Review

In 2020, the Washington Supreme Court entrusted the legal community with working to eradicate racism from its legal system. Soon after, Washington’s Commission on Judicial Conduct (hereinafter the Commission) received a complaint about a bus ad for North Seattle College featuring King County Superior Court Judge David Keenan. Along with a photo of Judge Keenan’s face, the ad included the following language: “A Superior Court Judge, David Keenan got into law in part to advocate for marginalized communities. David’s changing the world. He started at North.” The Commission admonished Judge Keenan for violating the Code of Judicial Conduct, in part …

Table Of Contents, Seattle University Law Review

Seattle University Law Review

Table of Contents