Civil Procedure Commons^™

Closure Provisions In Mdl Settlements, D. Theodore Rave

Fordham Law Review

Closure has value in mass litigation. Defendants often insist on it as a condition of settlement, and plaintiffs who can deliver it may be able to command a premium. But in multidistrict litigation (MDL), which currently makes up over one-third of the federal docket, closure depends on individual claimants deciding to participate in a global settlement. Accordingly, MDL settlement designers often include terms designed to encourage claimants to opt in to the settlement and discourage them from continuing to litigate. Some of these terms have been criticized as unduly coercive and as benefiting the negotiating parties—the defendant and the lead …

The Bellwether Settlement, Adam S. Zimmerman

Fordham Law Review

This Article examines the use of bellwether mediation in mass litigation. Bellwether mediations are different from bellwether trials,” a practice where parties choose a representative sample of cases for trial to determine how to resolve a much larger number of similar cases. In bellwether mediations, the parties instead rely on a representative sample of settlement outcomes overseen by judges and court-appointed mediators.

Domicile Dismantled, Kerry Abrams, Kathryn Barber

Indiana Law Journal

Part I of this Article discusses the legal and factual background of Mas v. Perry. This narrative reveals how the case reflects both the changes in American society that were beginning to occur at that time and the struggle of the concept of domicile to keep pace with those changes. Part II traces the development of the fundamental shift in gender roles that began several years before Mas was decided. This section argues that the growing number of women attending college, embarking upon careers, and forming two-career marriages increased the difficulty of measuring domicile, while undermining the efficacy of a …

Due Process Without Judicial Process?: Antiadversarialism In American Legal Culture, Norman W. Spaulding

Fordham Law Review

For decades now, American scholars of procedure and legal ethics have remarked upon the death of the jury trial. If jury trial is not in fact dead as an institution for the resolution of disputes, it is certainly “vanishing.” Even in complex litigation, courts tend to facilitate nonadjudicative resolutions—providing sites for aggregation, selection of counsel, fact gathering, and finality (via issue and claim preclusion)—rather than trial on the merits in any conventional sense of the term. In some high-stakes criminal cases and a fraction of civil cases, jury trial will surely continue well into the twenty-first century. Wall-to-wall media coverage …

Attaching Domestic Assets To Remedy High Seas Pollution: Rule B And Marine Debris, Jonathan M. Gutoff

Law Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Breaking Bad Briefs, Heidi K. Brown

Articles & Chapters

This article focuses on the practical effects of bad briefing on our legal process and suggests a holistic remedy: a system-wide commitment to striving to instill in law students and lawyers a respect for legal writing as, not only a fundamental competency of our chosen profession, but a talent that requires initial training, focused study, repeated practice, and conscious evolution throughout the arc of one’s legal education and career. Effective brief-writing is not as simple as a quick cut-and-paste job, a template download, or a stream-of-consciousness exercise, even for lawyers who repeatedly practice one type of case. Part I of …

Busting Up The Pretrial Industry, Andrew S. Pollis

Fordham Law Review

While some argue that “[r]eturning to a trial model would be a significant step toward fulfilling the traditional expectations for the federal courts,” that step backward is unlikely to occur. But I agree that fixes are in order, and I offer two. First, we should consider requiring at least some parties to engage in early settlement evaluation—ideally before extensive discovery gets underway—by submitting cases to summary jury trials and imposing consequences on parties who choose to disregard the results. Second, we should allocate a greater percentage of judicial resources to discovery management through the routine appointment of special masters to …

Restraining Lawyers: From “Cases” To “Tasks”, Morris A. Ratner

Fordham Law Review

These regulatory and market mechanisms for restraining lawyers share a common thread but differ in their purposes, efficacy, and fairness. Despite these differences, the growing intensity of their focus, and their possible amplification of each other, suggest the possibility of the emergence of new professional norms that call on litigators to think more deeply and inclusively about value from the perspective of court and client when making litigation choices.

What Does It Mean To Say That Procedure Is Political?, Dana S. Reda

Fordham Law Review

Procedure is not the first field of law to face controversy along these lines. Law’s independence from politics, in both its descriptive and normative aspects, is a century long legal challenge.9 This Article aims to clarify what we mean when we characterize procedure as political, as well as to understand some of the harms generated by failing to confront and acknowledge the political. This is a preliminary step in approaching future formulations of procedural rules if they cannot be depoliticized.

The Bellwether Settlement, Adam S. Zimmerman

Fordham Law Review

This Article examines the use of bellwether mediation in mass litigation. Bellwether mediations are different from bellwether trials,” a practice where parties choose a representative sample of cases for trial to determine how to resolve a much larger number of similar cases. In bellwether mediations, the parties instead rely on a representative sample of settlement outcomes overseen by judges and court-appointed mediators.

Erie Step Zero, Alexander A. Reinert

Fordham Law Review

Courts and commentators have assumed that the Erie doctrine, while originating in diversity cases, applies in all cases whatever the basis for federal jurisdiction. Thus, when a federal court asserts jurisdiction over pendent state law claims through the exercise of supplemental jurisdiction in a federal question case, courts regularly apply the Erie doctrine to resolve conflict between federal and state law. This Article shows why this common wisdom is wrong. To understand why, it is necessary to return to Erie’s goals, elaborated over time by the U.S. Supreme Court. Erie and its progeny are steeped in diversity-driven policy concerns: …

Restraining Lawyers: From “Cases” To “Tasks”, Morris A. Ratner

Fordham Law Review

These regulatory and market mechanisms for restraining lawyers share a common thread but differ in their purposes, efficacy, and fairness. Despite these differences, the growing intensity of their focus, and their possible amplification of each other, suggest the possibility of the emergence of new professional norms that call on litigators to think more deeply and inclusively about value from the perspective of court and client when making litigation choices.

What Does It Mean To Say That Procedure Is Political?, Dana S. Reda

Fordham Law Review

Procedure is not the first field of law to face controversy along these lines. Law’s independence from politics, in both its descriptive and normative aspects, is a century long legal challenge.9 This Article aims to clarify what we mean when we characterize procedure as political, as well as to understand some of the harms generated by failing to confront and acknowledge the political. This is a preliminary step in approaching future formulations of procedural rules if they cannot be depoliticized.

Constraining Monitors, Veronica Root

Fordham Law Review

Part I of this Article explains the failure of recent attempts by courts and legislators to constrain monitor behavior. Part II then argues that one reason for the lack of monitorship regulation lies in the reluctance of bar associations to oversee quasi-legal behavior. It then explains why reputation appears to be the primary factor reigning in monitor behavior today. Part III discusses implications of this Article’s findings. Specifically, it discusses concerns regarding the disclosure of information, the boundaries of the relationship between a monitor and other parties, and the ways a monitor’s identity might be utilized as a sanctioning mechanism. …

Due Process Without Judicial Process?: Antiadversarialism In American Legal Culture, Norman W. Spaulding

Fordham Law Review

For decades now, American scholars of procedure and legal ethics have remarked upon the death of the jury trial. If jury trial is not in fact dead as an institution for the resolution of disputes, it is certainly “vanishing.” Even in complex litigation, courts tend to facilitate nonadjudicative resolutions—providing sites for aggregation, selection of counsel, fact gathering, and finality (via issue and claim preclusion)—rather than trial on the merits in any conventional sense of the term. In some high-stakes criminal cases and a fraction of civil cases, jury trial will surely continue well into the twenty-first century. Wall-to-wall media coverage …

Erie Step Zero, Alexander A. Reinert

Fordham Law Review

Courts and commentators have assumed that the Erie doctrine, while originating in diversity cases, applies in all cases whatever the basis for federal jurisdiction. Thus, when a federal court asserts jurisdiction over pendent state law claims through the exercise of supplemental jurisdiction in a federal question case, courts regularly apply the Erie doctrine to resolve conflict between federal and state law. This Article shows why this common wisdom is wrong. To understand why, it is necessary to return to Erie’s goals, elaborated over time by the U.S. Supreme Court. Erie and its progeny are steeped in diversity-driven policy concerns: …

It’S Time For An Intervention!: Resolving The Conflict Between Rule 24(A)(2) And Article Iii Standing, Gregory R. Manring

Fordham Law Review

This Note argues that federal courts should employ an approach that is more related to maintaining the benefits of Rule 24 without running afoul of Article III—a task the yes-or-no approach is ill equipped to handle. Ultimately, an approach that is based on employing a standing analysis only where the Case or Controversy Clause is implicated anew allows the greatest access to the intervention device without running the risk of entertaining nonjusticiable disputes.

Parochial Procedure, Maggie Gardner

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The federal courts are often accused of being too parochial, favoring U.S. parties over foreigners and U.S. law over relevant foreign or international law. According to what this Article terms the “parochial critique,” the courts’ U.S.-centrism generates unnecessary friction with allies, regulatory conflict, and access-to-justice gaps. This parochialism is assumed to reflect the preferences of individual judges: persuade judges to like international law and transnational cases better, the standard story goes, and the courts will reach more cosmopolitan results.

This Article challenges that assumption. I argue instead that parochial doctrines can develop even in the absence of parochial judges. Our …

La Continuidad De Los Juicios Con El Nuevo Gobierno: El 2 X 1 / The Continuity Of The Judgments With The New Government: The 2 X 1, Julie Olesky

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

La presente investigación se enfoca en los juicios actuales a los responsablesde la última dictadura cívico-militar en Argentina y en una dilucidación en torno al respaldo o falta de apoyo hacia estos procesos por parte de la gestión del presidente Mauricio Macri. A partir de visitas a la ESMA, la asistencia a un juicio, hasta entrevistas con defensores de derechos humanos y profesores y estudiantes de sociología y derecho, se indaga acerca de la importancia y el significado de la justicia en Argentina, cómo opera la justicia, cómo se combate la impunidad, y cómo luchan los organismos de derechos humanos …

The Unsung Virtues Of Global Forum Shopping, Pamela K. Bookman

Notre Dame Law Review

Forum shopping gets a bad name. This is even more true in the context of transnational litigation. The term is associated with unprincipled gamesmanship and undeserved victories. Courts therefore often seek to thwart the practice. But in recent years, exaggerated perceptions of the “evils” of forum shopping among courts in different countries have led U.S. courts to impose high barriers to global forum shopping. These extreme measures prevent global forum shopping from serving three unappreciated functions: protecting access to justice, promoting private regulatory enforcement, and fostering legal reform.

This Article challenges common perceptions about global forum shopping that have supported …