Monday, December 13, 2010

Shark at the National Press Club

Last week, I had the privilege of participating in a panel on amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure sponsored by the Federal Society for Law & Public Policy Studies at the National Press Club in Washington DC. Procedure mavens can watch it here. My co-panelists were Marty Redish of Northwestern (author of one of the leading texts in the area), Ron Allen of Northwestern and Don Elliott of Yale. This had me wondering whether this ought not to have been the theme song for the panel.

3 comments:

George Mitchell said...

Who would have thought that "amendments to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure" wouldn't generate more comments?

Free Lunch said...

First the actual comment:

Congratulations. Updating civil (and criminal) procedure is a thankless task that generally suffers from an abundance of "it's good enough for me" objections and few adequate reforms. Sure, we don't have too many cases of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, but we do have a lot of cases where lawyers use discovery, particularly depositions, for intimidation and wastefulness. There needs to be a way to improve the process without actually interfering with the useful parts of this. I know that a lawyer who is found to have been abusing the process can be sanctioned, but sanctions are all too rare and often too late.

George, there aren't usually too many comments here, though most are on point. If you want comments on a blog by a conservative law school professor, you are looking for Althouse. Some are even on point.

George Mitchell said...

Free Lunch makes good points. I've had first-hand experience with lawyers and clients who abuse procedure.