CONTENTS: I. The Needless Mystery of Court House Government. II. Fights and Rights. III. Facts Are Guesses. IV. Modern Legal Magic. V. Wizards and Lawyers. VI. The "Fight" Theory versus the "Truth" Theory. VII. The Procedural Reformers. VIII. The Jury System. IX. Defenses of the Jury System--Suggested Reforms. X. Are Judges Human? XI. Psychological Approaches. XII. Criticism of Trial-Court Decisions--The Gestalt. XIII. A Trial as a Communicative Process. XIV. "Legal Science" and "Legal Engineering." XV. The Upper-Court Myth. XVI. Legal Education. XVII. Special Training for Trial Judges. XVIII. The Cult of the Robe. XIX. Precedents and Stability. XX. Codification. XXI. Words and Music: Legislation and Judicial Interpretation. XXII. Constitutions--The Merry-Go-Round. XIII. Legal Reasoning. XXIV. Da Capo. XXV. The Anthropological Approach. XXVI. Natural Law. XXVII. The Psychology of Litigants. XXVIII. The Unblindfolding of Justice. XXIX. Classicism and Romanticism. XXX. Justice and Emotions. XXXI. Questioning Some Legal Axioms. XXXII. Reason and Unreason--Ideals.

Provides an indepth analysis of the American legal system and proposes reforms in the workings of the court. Bibliogs

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct provides an up-to-date resource for information on legal ethics. Federal, state and local courts in all jurisdictions look to the Rules for guidance in solving lawyer malpractice cases, disciplinary actions, disqualification issues, sanctions questions and much more. In this volume, black-letter Rules of Professional Conduct are followed by numbered Comments that explain each Rule's purpose and provide suggestions for its practical application. The Rules will help you identify proper conduct in a variety of given situations, review those instances where discretionary action is possible, and define the nature of the relationship between you and your clients, colleagues and the courts.

How trial courts operate and administer justice.

In the more than 30 years since the drug court model transformed the criminal justice landscape, problem-solving courts have expanded their reach beyond criminogenic needs. They now address demographic similarities (e.g., veterans courts, tribal wellness courts, community courts) and offense characteristics (e.g., prostitution courts, sex offender courts). The rapid expansion of problem-solving courts to meet many different individuals suggests this template is appropriate and adaptable to just about any categorical characteristic. This book calls on problem-solving court experts to offer a fresh perspective on the evolving discourse on these courts' proliferation. Contributors describe diverse applications of the problem-solving court model while critically appraising these niche courts' evidence. This book provides a comprehensive account to date of how problem-solving courts are continuing to revolutionize justice. This collective body of work strengthens our understanding of their placement in the throes of a call for meaningful criminal justice reform.Taking Problem-Solving Courts to Scale is presented in three sections to address specialty courts focused on criminogenic needs, individual characteristics, and offense characteristics. At the outset of each section, the editors describe the courts' purpose falling under these broad categories and highlight key elements from the chapters falling within.

This book addresses timely questions: What is judicial activism? Can judges simply read their own political preferences into the Charter? Does the Court have the last word over democratically elected legislatures? Are our judges captives of special interests? What can Canadians and their governments do if they think the Court has got it wrong?

The theory of natural law grounds human laws in the universal truths of God’s creation. Until very recently, lawyers in the Western tradition studied natural law as part of their training, and the task of the judicial system was to put its tenets into concrete form, building an edifice of positive law on natural law’s foundations. Although much has been written about natural law in theory, surprisingly little has been said about how it has shaped legal practice. Natural Law in Court asks how lawyers and judges made and interpreted natural law arguments in England, Europe, and the United States, from the beginning of the sixteenth century to the American Civil War. R. H. Helmholz sees a remarkable consistency in how English, Continental, and early American jurisprudence understood and applied natural law in cases ranging from family law and inheritance to criminal and commercial law. Despite differences in their judicial systems, natural law was treated across the board as the source of positive law, not its rival. The idea that no person should be condemned without a day in court, or that penalties should be proportional to the crime committed, or that self-preservation confers the right to protect oneself against attacks are valuable legal rules that originate in natural law. From a historical perspective, Helmholz concludes, natural law has advanced the cause of justice.

Agent Orange on Trial is a riveting legal drama with all the suspense of a courtroom thriller. One of the Vietnam War's farthest reaching legacies was the Agent Orange case. In this unprecedented personal injury class action, veterans charge that a valuable herbicide, indiscriminately sprayed on the luxuriant Vietnam jungle a generation ago, has now caused cancers, birth defects, and other devastating health problems. Peter Schuck brilliantly recounts the gigantic confrontation between two million ex-soldiers, the chemical industry, and the federal government. From the first stirrings of the lawyers in 1978 to the court plan in 1985 for distributing a record $200 million settlement, the case, which is now on appeal, has extended the frontiers of our legal system in all directions. In a book that is as much about innovative ways to look at the law as it is about the social problems arising from modern science, Schuck restages a sprawling, complex drama. The players include dedicated but quarrelsome veterans, a crusading litigator, class action organizers, flamboyant trial lawyers, astute court negotiators, and two federal judges with strikingly different judicial styles. High idealism, self-promotion, Byzantine legal strategies, and judicial creativity combine in a fascinating portrait of a human struggle for justice through law. The Agent Orange case is the most perplexing and revealing example until now of a new legal genre: the mass toxic tort. Such cases, because of their scale, cost, geographical and temporal dispersion, and causal uncertainty, present extraordinarily difficult challenges to our legal system. They demand new approaches to procedure, evidence, and the definition of substantive legal rights and obligations, as well as new roles for judges, juries, and regulatory agencies. Schuck argues that our legal system must be redesigned if it is to deal effectively with the increasing number of chemical disasters such as the Bhopal accident, ionizing radiation, asbestos, DES, and seepage of toxic wastes. He imaginatively reveals the clash between our desire for simple justice and the technical demands of a complex legal system.