Giving Notice: An Argument for Notification of Putative Plaintiffs in Complex Litigation

Professor Silver advocates recognition of an inherent judicial power to send or authorize notice of pending litigation to potentially interested persons with unfiled claims. Recognizing such a judicial power is consistent with recent legal developments establishing a role for judges in expediting and managing federal litigation. Although the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure only explicitly provide for notice to potential parties in Rule 23 class action litigation, Professor Silver demonstrates that a more general judicial power to notify putative plaintiffs is consistent with the federal rules and the Constitution. She also shows that the first amendment values support a judicial role in providing notice. Finally, the judiciary’s role in protecting the disadvantaged, the public interest in private actions arising from mass torts and other collective actions, and the conservation of both public and private resources resulting from case consolidation, justify the federal district court’s inherent power to send or authorize notice to putative plaintiffs

Evening the Odds: The Case for Attorneys\u27 Fee Awards for Administrative Resolution of Title VI and Title VII Disputes

In this Article Professor Silver addresses the shifting of attorneys\u27 fees in administratively resolved claims under Titles VI and VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Professor Silver begins by establishing Congress\u27 commitment to provide informal methods for resolving disputes under these statutes and its intent to use fee-shifting provisions as a means of inducing effective access to counsel. She then discusses the United States Supreme Court\u27s decision in North Carolina Department of Transportation v. Crest Street Community Council, Inc. and contrasts its reasoning with two earlier Court decisions dealing with administrative proceedings and attorneys\u27 fees. Professor Silver argues that Crest undermines Congress\u27 intended designs for both informal dispute resolution and fee-shifting in civil rights enforcement. She then proposes standards by which the Court might have evaluated whether separate federal actions to recover attorneys\u27fees should lie for civil rights cases resolved administratively. After countering arguments against fee recovery, the author calls on Congress to reverse the path the Supreme Court has taken and to amend the relevant civil rights fee-shifting statutes to allow explicitly for fee awards to parties who have prevailed in administrative proceedings under those statutes

Transforming Justice, Lawyers and the Practice of Law

This is the Preface and Introduction to Transforming Justice, Lawyers and the Practice of Law, an anthology of writings by participants in the Project for Integrating Spirituality, Law and Politics (PISLAP) and others actively engaged in transforming law, legal education and social justice. It showcases the abundant ways in which lawyers, judges, law professors and others are employing more communitarian, peaceful and healing ways to resolve conflicts, plan legal relationships and achieve justice. It is written for lawyers, law professors, law students and others who share similar goals and are eager to learn new ways to practice law and create a legal system that fosters empathy, compassion and constructive change, a system that is collaborative rather than adversarial, that seeks to heal brokenness rather than merely resolve disputes, and that moves us toward The Beloved Community envisioned by the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. The book is comprised of fourteen chapters, divided into eight sections: The Vision: The Spiritual Dimension of Social Justice Transforming Criminal & Juvenile Justice; Healing Civil Conflict; Transforming the Rule of Law Transforming Legal Education; Transforming the Courtroom; Transforming Law Practice; Transforming the Earth

On Bringing the Justice Mission Conference Back Home

The Justice Mission Conference had a special resonance for me. The Conference was an affirmation of the values that have led me to Touro, as well as a springboard for changes in my own teaching. The Conference nurtured inclinations and aspirations to furthering social justice through our teaching, our scholarship, and the way we relate to our students, to each other and to the world at large. The papers in this symposium memorialize the Conference\u27s richness of insight and experience. The purpose of this essay is to reflect on the immediate and potential ongoing impact the Conference had on me and my colleagues from Touro. I am sure we are not unique in the nature or the variety of ideas that the Conference generated for us. Nonetheless, what follows is a tribute to the Conference presenters who gave so much to the rest of us, as well as a possible inspiration to those looking for simple possibilities for furthering social justice in their own academic experience

A Transformational Melancholy: One Law Professor\u27s Journey Through Depression

In the fall 2007 issue of the Journal of Legal Education, Professor James Jones shared his deeply personal, remarkable, ongoing, story of living, struggling and succeeding as a law professor with bipolar disorder (James T.R. Jones, Walking the Tightrope of Bipolar Disorder: The Secret Life of a Law Professor, 57 J. LEGAL ED. 349 (2007). His essay ended with an invitation to other members of the legal academy to contact him or Professor Elyn Saks, author of an extraordinary memoir about her life with schizophrenia, (ELYN R. SAKS, THE CENTER CANNOT HOLD (2007)) if interested in forming a confidential support group for legal academics with mental illness. This is my public response to Professor Jones’ invitation. I, too, have struggled with a mental disorder. Luckily, however, unlike that of Professor James Jones or Elyn Saks, my story is one of episodic, not chronic, mental illness. Over the course of more than three decades, I have suffered six episodes of major clinical depression. However, I have been blessed with a combination of compassionate, loving people, wise professionals, a fair amount of good luck, and a basically optimistic and resilient personality. With the consistent support of family, friends, empathetic employers, and caring psychiatrists, I have, despite it all, thrived. I share my story for several reasons. One is to join Professor Jones’ and Dean Saks’ brave campaigns to help de-stigmatize, to normalize, mental illness generally, and among the legal academy in particular. Another is my supposition that there are more law professors who have suffered from clinical depression similar to what I have experienced than have coped with either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Finally, I hope to inspire others who have born mental illness to use their own experiences, when feasible, to help their students, colleagues, and the practicing bar