(Papers to be published in The Review of Litigation)
One or more additional presenters will be selected from a call for papers.
Large-scale litigation--whether in the form of class actions, multi-district litigation or mass tort cases -continues to generate significant issues within the legal community and society at large. Large-scale litigation often drives procedural, process, and substantive law modifications of rules, statutes and common law. Courts, legislators, and commentators have focused in recent years on the costs of discovery, tightening pleading standards, improving management of cases, regulating court choice and access, and modification of substantive law standards - often through the prism of large-scale litigation. This program explores selected large-scale litigation issues likely to arise in 2012 and beyond. Often mass tort cases proceed on parallel tracks in both state and federal courts. Mr. Lee will use empirical data to shed light on the state of coordination in such cases, focusing on the efforts of federal judges presiding over multi-district litigation to work with their state counterparts. Professor Mullenix will examine certain issues arising from the large number of litigation claims filed in response to the BP oil spill. Professor Slack will focus on issues that arise in class actions brought against the federal government. Professor Wasserman will discuss "secret" settlements in class actions. An additional presentation will be drawn from a Call for Papers.
Business Meeting at Program Conclusion.