Dispute Processing and a Longitudinal Approach to Trial Courts

This article suggests ways to integrate the insights and findings of two rather distinct fields: docket-based, longitudinal studies of trial courts and studies of dispute processing. In particular, I argue that longitudinal research on courts would benefit enormously from the incorporation of concepts and data on dispute processing. For example, instead of taking court cases as the starting point for study, longitudinal research should explore the multistage and transformative nature of disputing. Historical data should also be collected on the nature of the relationships between opposing litigants, on the roles played by participants other than the litigants (lawyers, supporters, audiences, third parties), and on the nature of processes within courts and within alternative community institutions for handling disputes. Longitudinal research can also contribute to our understanding of dispute processing by showing how current processes have been shaped by past use, and how changes in institutions and legal doctrine have influenced the definition and processing of disputes. I also discuss the weaknesses shared by some of the research in both fields, such as a greater concern for process than for outcome, a tendency to ignore political aspects of litigation, and an overemphasis on individual disputing behavior. I conclude by suggesting that longitudinal research on trial courts should pay greater attention to change in ideas about law and to shifting conceptions of right and wrong, cause and responsibility, and problem definition

Client Selection

Published as Chapter 6 in Insiders, Outsiders, Injuries, and Law: Revisiting The Oven Bird’s Song.https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/book_sections/1352/thumbnail.jp

Conclusion: The Mobilizing Potential of Class Actions

Symposium: The Sociology of Class Actions NOTE: A printing error labeled this issue Spring 1982, when it should have been labeled Summer 198

Sylvia Plath images of life in a poet of death

On a creative and a personal level, Sylvia Plath seems to have been fascinated by the relationship between life and death. Her work reflects an ongoing preoccupation with duality and a sense of tension between two opposing forces suffuses virtually every poem she wrote in the period from 1956 to early 1963. Because her attitude to both life and death is deeply ambivalent, Plath's poetry rests on a strong awareness of conflict and her art is characterized by a continual pull between extremes. This thesis is an examination of how she uses images of life in poems that ostensibly deal with death.While Plath draws on the events of her own life for her poetic material, she also converts her personal experiences into a universal myth. She was familiar with Robert Graves's eclectic study of the pagan nature deity, The White Goddess, and she seems to have incorporated part of his symbolism into her own code of images. In particular, she adopts Graves's triple goddess of nature as one of the dominant figures in her created world, for the White Goddess is associated with life and death alike.Plath's dichotomy of life and death works on different planes. Firstly, she frequently envisages the self as divided and the opposition between life and death takes on the dimensions of an internal psychological war. Secondly, she extends the battle between life and death to the creative sphere. Thirdly, she explores the idea of life as a journey from birth to death. The White Goddess is linked with the three natural realms of earth, sky and underworld. And Plath relies largely on seasonal, lunar and chthonic images in her poetry. Furthermore, the three colours of the goddess - white , red and black - are the dominant hues of her poetry

Plea Bargaining Reexamined

A Review of Plea Bargaining: The Experiences of Prosecutors, Judges, and Defense Attorneys by Milton Heuman

How and Why Do Lawyers Misbehave? Lawyers, Discipline, and Collegial Control

Published as Chapter 6 in The Paradox of Professionalism: Lawyers and the Possibility of Justice, Scott L. Cummings, ed. A fundamental principle of professional labor is that the members of a specialized occupation, as professionals, enjoy autonomy. In sociologist Elliot Freidson\u27s words, professionals “control their own work.” The practitioners themselves decide what constitutes acceptable or appropriate behavior. Professions establish rules and systems of self-regulation to teach and enforce the expected standards of conduct on their members. One way, then, to assess legal professionalism is to ask how well lawyers regulate themselves. The extensive literature on lawyer regulation paints a negative picture. The Watergate scandal of the early 1970s brought renewed scrutiny to the legal profession. Although a variety of changes have occurred since then to improve lawyer regulation, numerous problems remain. Law schools now require students to take legal ethics, but such courses generally lack stature and respect. Bar discipline was reorganized in the 1970s to transfer some control from bar associations to agencies of state supreme courts. State discipline agencies in turn have increased their investigation of grievances filed against lawyers. But the vast majority of grievances continue to be dismissed. Much professional discipline is private (such as a warning letter, reprimand, or confidential diversion program), which undermines public trust and confidence in the system. Further, even the most common forms of public sanctions on lawyers (public censure, suspension, or disbarment) are specific to that state, and nothing prevents a sanctioned attorney from seeking bar admission in another state (although they would be required to disclose any prior sanctions).https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/book_sections/1300/thumbnail.jp