The significance of the Mediterranean Sea to global climatology

Food production is affected by climate and by climate change. The indices for climate change may be recognized in long-term systematic observations of oceanic water columns at selected referential sites. The Mediterranean Sea, as part of the global oceanic circulation system, may be sensitive to climatic variation and may have an influence upon climate. The establishment of international referencestations for the Mediterranean area is suggested

From Conley to Twombly to Iqbal: A Double Play on the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure

This Article discusses the effects of the recent Supreme Court decisions in Bell Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly and Ashcroft v. Iqbal on the model of civil litigation established by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938. Those Rules created a procedural system giving a litigant, using plain language and presenting the essential elements of a claim for relief an opportunity to pursue discovery and have his or her rights adjudicated on the merits. This Article discusses the basic values underlying that system and its importance in promoting broad citizen access to our federal courts and enabling the private enforcement of substantive public policies. The Article then discusses how Twombly and Iqbal have destabilized both the pleading and the motion-to-dismiss practices as they have been known for over sixty years. The cases are seen as the latest in a sequence of increasingly restrictive changes during the last quarter century. These have created expensive and time-consuming procedural stop signs that produce earlier and earlier termination of cases, thereby increasingly preventing claimants from reaching trial particularly jury trial. This Article contends that there has been too much attention paid to claims by corporate and other defense interests of expense and possible abuse and too little on citizen access, a level litigation playing field, and the other values of civil litigation. Much fine-grained empirical research is needed to separate fact from fiction. This Article finds that setting significantly higher and more resource-consumptive procedural barriers for plaintiffs and moving to the ever-earlier disposition of civil suits now exacerbated by the two Supreme Court decisions runs contrary to many of the values underlying the Federal Rules. Concluding that the Court\u27s preoccupation with defense costs is misplaced and its belittlement of case management as a way of cabining those costs is unpersuasive, the Article offers several proposals that the Advisory Committee on Civil Rules (or Congress) might consider to reverse recent developments and ameliorate some of their negative aspects. Ultimately, the Article asks a basic question: after Twombly and Iqbal, is our American court system still one in which an aggrieved person, however unsophisticated and under-resourced he may be, can secure a meaningful day in court? Finding that the important values of civil litigation are in jeopardy, this Article Urges that the egalitarian, democratic ideals espoused by the original Federal Rules not be subordinated to one-dimensional claims of excessive litigation costs and abuse that have not been validated

Some Very Personal Reflections on the Rules, Rulemaking, and Reporters

My entry into the world of federal rulemaking was one of those unpredictable but welcome fortuities of life. In early 1961, more than a half century ago, I was a happy and progressing associate in a prominent medium-sized, Wall Street, New York City law firm. Columbia Law School approached me to be the Associate Director of its newly formed Project on International Procedure. They dangled several attractive incentives: I could try my hand at teaching some civil procedure; hobnob with the giants of the Columbia faculty, like Herb Wechsler, Walter Gellhorn, Maury Rosenberg, and Jack Weinstein; and take my first trip to Europe to work with proceduralists in several countries on international judicial assistance matters

Lay Divorce Firms and the Unauthorized Practice of Law

Effective January 1, 1972, Michigan adopted a no-fault divorce law. Since that time, at least two firms in the Detroit area have gone into the business of providing assistance to people wishing to process their own divorces. These enterprises, which have been dubbed divorce firms or divorce kit firms, have come under heavy attack from the organized bar. The State Bar of Michigan has instituted court proceedings against one firm for the unauthorized practice of law, and a court on its own initiative has already issued an injunction against the other. These cases raise two important issues: whether the divorce firms are guilty of the unauthorized practice of law, and if they are and may therefore be enjoined from continuing their operations, whether to do so is in the public interest. As to the first of these issues, it is likely that on the basis of present law these firms may successfully be prosecuted for unauthorized practice. It is far less clear that this result is a desirable one. Evaluations of this sort should be made by weighing both the costs and the benefits flowing from the operation of lay divorce firms and from the prohibition of such firms. On the basis of such an analysis this article offers several suggestions for a new approach to divorce firms and the unauthorized practice of law

The Computer and Individual Privacy

Excerpts from testimony before U.O. Senate Subcommittee on Administrative Practice and Procedure, March 14, 196

What Are Courts For? Have We Forsaken the Procedural GoldStandard?

The article focuses on procedural gold standard in the civil justice system with stop signs such as personal jurisdiction, class actions and summary judgment and mentions privatization of civil dispute resolution

The Press and Privacy: A Clash of Constitutional Values

A discussion of the delicate balance between competing interests and competing rights. We all know the importance of a free press. Yet this must be balanced with the right to privacy, which is a very subjective right, and also protected by the Constitution. This talk was presented at Sacred Heart University on April 17, 1991, sponsored by the Freedom Institute and the Continuing Education Council

Impact of Computers on Credit Bureaus

Statement before the Subcommittee on Antitrust and Monopoly of the Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. Senate, December 11, 1968. I perceive my function as being primarily one of offering a few observations as to the impact that computers and related technologies will have on the ways in which credit bureaus will function in the future and the form that industry may take a decade or two from now. I assume that one of the basic concerns of the Subcommittee is the possible effects these transformations of the credit bureau industry may have on competition. Thus, with apologies for my limited appreciation of antitrust law and policy, I will try to suggest ways in which a computer-based credit bureau industry may raise serious questions under existing principles and philosophies of competition